BOOKS    BY 
WILLIAM  EMERSON  RITTER 

THE    HIGHER   USEFULNESS  OF   SCI- 
ENCE. 

THE    PROBABLE    INFINITY    OF    NA- 
TUEE  AND  LIFE. 

THE  UNITY  OF  THE  ORGANISM,  OR 
THE  ORGANISMAL  CONCEPTION  OF 
LIFE.  Illustrated. 
THE  UNITY  OF  THE  ORGANIC  SPE- 
CIES, WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO 
THE  HUMAN  SPECIES. 

WAR,  SCIENCE   AND   CIVILIZATION. 
RICHARD  G .  BADGER,  PUBLISHER ,  BOSTON 


WAR,  SCIENCE 
AND  CIVILIZATION 

BY 

WILLIAM  EMERSON  HITTER 

Director  of  the  Scripps  Institution  for 

Biological  Research  of  the  University 

of  California,  La  Jolla, 

California 


BOSTON 
RICHARD  G.    BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 


COPYRI&HT,  1915,  SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


THE  GORHAM  PRESS,  BOSTON  U.  S.  A. 


CO 
/ 


UNIVE       TY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  reader  is  asked  to  take  this  little  essay  more 
as  a  biological  than  as  an  ethical-political  study  of 
man.  He  is  further  asked  to  notice  that  the  study 
proceeds  from  the  natural  history  side  of  biology 
rather  than  from  the  chemical-anatomical  side. 
The  starting  point  is  that  of  the  field,  or  observing 
biologist  rather  than  that  of  the  laboratory,  or  ex- 
perimenting biologist.  It  is  that  of  Linnaeus, 
the  biologist  who  looked  upon  man  as  alive  and 
acting,  and  as  one  among  innumerable  other  ani- 
mals, and  named  him  Homo  sapiens,  the  wise 
species,  just  as  he  looked  upon  the  cat  and  named 
her  Felis  domestica,  the  household  species. 

The  "  struggle  for  existence  "  (or  is  it  struggle 
to  terminate  the  existence  of  the  other  side  ?  —  The 
distinction  is  fundamental.)  in  which  the  wise 
species  inhabiting  the  Old  World  is  now  engaged, 
is  a  spectacle  irresistibly  fascinating  to  me,  not 
only  from  its  momentousness  to  human  welfare,  but 
from  the  great  scientific  problems  it  involves. 

If  the  reader  will  keep  in  mind  the  kind  of  work- 
man and  the  motives  that  have  produced  the  essay, 
he  will  perhaps  judge  the  effort  more  from  the 
fundamental  principles  set  forth,  than  from  its 
shortcomings  in  matters  of  political  and  historical 
detail  —  shortcomings  which  the  writer  knows  are 
serious. 

W.  E.   R. 
LA  JOLLA,  CALIFORNIA. 


INTRODUCTION 

Civilization  and  not  war  is  the  main  theme  of 
this  essay.  The  European  cataclysm  was,  it  is 
true,  the  stimulus  to  the  expression  of  the  pres- 
ent views,  but  it  has  only  an  incidental  place  in 
the  discussion.  Two*  things  have  specially  in- 
fluenced me  to  consider  certain  aspects  of  the 
subject  now  uppermost  in  the  world's  attention. 

First,  the  leading  nations  on  both  sides  in  this 
struggle  assert  with  the  greatest  positiveness  and 
undoubtedly  with  a  large  measure  of  sincerity 
that  they  are  fighting  for  civilization  as  well  as 
for  their  own  interests.  Second,  science  and 
scientific  ideas  are  playing  important  parts  in 
the  tragedy  now  being  acted  on  the  world  stage. 
The  physicist,  the  chemist,  and  the  engineer  are 
not  only  "  behind  the  gun,"  they  are  also  behind 
the  departments  of  state  and  war.  Further- 
more, eminent  publicists  make  much  of  the  "  bio- 
logical argument  "  both  in  defense  of  war  and 
in  denunciation  of  it.  It  does  not  seem  unnat- 
ural, then,  that  a  man  of  science,  particularly 
a  biologist  —  one  whose  business  it  is  to  observe 
living  things,  man  with  the  rest,  in  the  fullest, 
most  impersonal  manner  possible  —  should  think 


INTRODUCTION 

he  might  contribute  something  significant  to  the 
great  open  discussion. 

The  task  I  have  set  myself  will  not  require  me 
to  say  much  about  the  character  of  war  as  such. 
I  shall  consider  neither  its  general  causes  nor 
its  general  effects;  nor  shall  I  take  sides  one 
way  or  the  other  as  to  whether  universal  peace 
would  be  a  good  thing.  I  must  state,  however, 
that  I  do  not  believe  peace  at  any  cost  is  better 
than  war,  or  that  war  is  always  and  wholly  bad. 
Despite  the  great  preponderance  of  lofty  senti- 
ment and  wisdom  in  the  pacifism  of  later  years, 
I  cannot  shut  my  eyes  to  elements  in  it  of  pusil- 
lanimity and  menace  to  noble  character,  indi- 
vidual and  national.  There  are  those,  neither 
few  in  number  nor  weak  in  influence,  who  advo- 
cate peace  more  in  the  interest  of  money-making 
than  in  that  of  man's  highest  good;  and  some 
of  these  there  are  whose  hunger  for  gain  is  so 
debasing  that  they  would  preach  war  with  as 
much  zeal  as  they  now  preach  peace,  were  they 
convinced  that  war  more  than  peace  would  help 
them  to  their  goal.  I  am  persuaded  that  all  the 
wars  combined  in  which  the  United  States  has 
engaged  have  not  hurt  our  national  ideals,  no, 
not  even  our  national  life,  so  much  as  has  com- 
mercialism. But  that  is  another  theme. 

I  undertake  to  show  that  wars  are  inevitable 
so  long  as  theory  and  practice  among  nations 


INTRODUCTION 

continue  to  be  what  they  are  with  respect  to  the 
acquisition  and  possession  of  territory;  and 
that  wars  are  no  solution  to  the  problem  because 
the  theory  which  is  instrumental  in  precipitat- 
ing most  of  them  is  scientifically  wrong. 

My  fundamental  thesis  may  be  stated  as  fol- 
lows :  Means  of  subsistence  being  as  essential 
to  nations  as  to  individuals,  when  a  nation  finds 
its  growing  population  pressing  hard  on  its 
territorial  limits  while  other  nations  own  more 
territory  than  they  need,  it  is  scientifically 
justifiable  for  that  nation  to  wage  war  for  gam- 
ing more  territory  if  no  other  means  of  relieving 
its  needs  can  be  found.  But  as  war  is  both  a 
costly  and  an  uncertain  way  of  gaining  the  end, 
some  other  way  should  be  sought.  Since  dis- 
covery, exploration,  and  settlement,  formerly 
available,  are  now  excluded  —  the  whole  landed 
area  of  the  earth  being  claimed  by  civilized  peo- 
ples —  the  only  way  open  is  negotiation.  It 
appears,  therefore,  that  a  great  forward  step 
in  world  civilization  would  be  taken  were  gov- 
ernments to  find  some  rational, —  that  is,  peace- 
ful,—  method  whereby  national  sovereignty 
over  portions  of  territory  might,  under  certain 
circumstances,  be  transferred  to  other  govern- 
ments. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  GENERAL  OUTLOOK  UPON  CIVILIZATION 
FROM  THE  STANDPOINT  OF  BIOLOGICAL 
SCIENCE 1 

I.  AN    ELEMENT    OF   INDUBITABLE 

JUSTICE  IN  GERMANY'S  CASE     .        1 
II.  WHAT  SCIENCE  IS  PURPORTED  TO 

TEACH  AND  WHAT  IT  DOES  TEACH        2 

III.  CIVILIZATION    AS    A    BIOLOGIST 

SEES    IT 6 

IV.  NATIONS  ESSENTIAL  TO  CIVILIZA- 
TION   8 

V.    THE    REAL    PROBLEM          .          .          .11 
VI.     PARTNERSHIP       BETWEEN       POLI- 
TICS AND  SCIENCE  IN  GOVERNING 

THE  WORLD 12 

VII.  THE  PROBLEM  OF  DISTRIBUTING 
WEALTH  POTENTIAL  AND  AC- 
TUAL   15 

VIII.    SCIENCE      EMPLOYED      FOR      AND 

AGAINST   WAR 18 

IX.     MALTHUSIANISM  NARROWLY 

VIEWED   AND   BROADLY   VIEWED    .         21 
X.    AMBITION     FOR     EMPIRE     INCOM- 
PATIBLE    WITH     HIGH     AMBITION 
FOR    CIVILIZATION        ....        26 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XI.  A  LARGER  CONCEPTION  OF  COLO- 
NIZATION AND  OF  MISSIONARY 
WORK 30 

II.  WHAT  SCIENCE  COULD  CONTRIBUTE 
TO  AN  ADEQUATE  CONCEPTION  OF 
CIVILIZATION 33 

I.  MAN'S  CAPACITY  FOR  IMPROVE- 
MENT   34 

n.  VARIETY  AND  UNITY  IN  CIVILIZA- 
TION   36 

m.  BIOLOGY'S  TESTIMONY  REGARD- 
ING UNITY  IN  LIVING  NATURE  .  38 

IV.  CIVILIZATION  AS  A  PART  OF  EVO- 
LUTION   45 

III.  CIVILIZATION  LOOKED  AT  STILL  MORE 

CLOSELY 50 

I.  CIVILIZING  PROCESSES  AND 
MAN'S  HIGHER  ATTRIBUTES  .  .  51 

II.  STILL  MORE  ABOUT  THE  COORDI- 
NATENESS  OF  VARIETY  AND 

UNITY 55 

HI.  VARIETY-PRODUCING  AND  UNITY- 
PRODUCING  FACTORS  IN  CIVILI- 
ZATION   57 

(a)  Science 57 

(6)   Trade,  Finance,  and  the 

Labor  Movement       .      .  60 

(c)  Religion 61 

(d)  Race 62 

(e)  Language        ....  64 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

IV.  DIVERSITY  AND  COMPLEXITY  OF  MAN, 

ACTUAL  AND  LATENT 66 

I.  POLYNATIONALISM   AND  HUMAN 

CULTURE 66 

II.  HUMAN  CULTURE  COMPARED  TO 
AGRICULTURE 69 

m.  THE  ABUSED  HYPOTHESES  OF 
NATURAL  ECONOMY  AND  NAT- 
URAL SELECTION  ....  72 

IV.  THE  MIGHTY  POWER  OF  DEVEL- 
OPMENTAL FORCES  ....  76 

V.  THE  INNATENESS  OF  DEVELOP- 
MENTAL FORCES  ....  81 

VI.  ARTIFICIAL  EMPIRES  VIOLATE 
NATURE'S  PRINCIPLES  OF  VARI- 
ETY AND  UNITY 84 

VII.  SCIENCE  AND  HUMAN  BROTHER- 
HOOD   90 

V.  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  EFFECTS  OF 
ADOPTING  THE  HYPOTHESES  OF  MAN'S 
CAPACITY  FOR  UNLIMITED  PROGRESS, 
AND  NATURE'S  CAPACITY  FOR  His  UN- 
LIMITED SUSTENTATION  ....  99 

i.  NEGATIVE:  BANISHING  DREAD  OF 

"  TRAGEDY   OF   POPULATION  "      .     100 

n.  POSITIVE:  IMBUING  PRODUCTIVE 

EFFORT  WITH  RELIGIOUS  ZEAL    .     102 
III.    RELIGIOUS     ZEAL    IN     SUBJUGAT- 
ING   NATURE    RATHER    THAN    IN 
SUBJUGATING  MEN  AND  NATIONS    109 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

VI.  WHAT  OUR  NATION  MIGHT  Do  IN  THE 

PRESENT  CRITICAL  PERIOD       .  .    .      .111 

I.  MEASURES   OF   INTRA-NATIONAL 

IMPROVEMENT Ill 

II.    MEASURES      OF      INTERNATIONAL 

IMPROVEMENT  116 


WAR,  SCIENCE 
AND  CIVILIZATION 


CHAPTER  I 

GENERAL  OUTLOOK  UPON  CIVILIZATION 

FROM  THE  STANDPOINT  OF 

BIOLOGICAL  SCIENCE 

I.     AN  ELEMENT  OF  INDUBITABLE  JUSTICE 
IN  GERMANY'S  CASE 

Justice  as  well  as  neutrality  is  the  watchword 
of  the  United  States  in  its  relation  with  the 
warring  powers  of  Europe.  This  being  so,  it 
is  incumbent  upon  the  people  of  our  country  to 
give  more  heed  to  one  of  Germany's  claims  than 
so  far  we  have  given.  We  must  grant  that  she 
deserves  "  more  room  in  the  sunshine  "  than  she 
has,  while  we  unreservedly  condemn  the  animal- 
istic theory  of  human  life  upon  which  modern 
militarism  largely  rests.  At  the  same  time  we 
gladly  recognize  that  the  good  Germany  has 
done  mankind  generally  by  cultivating  the  sci- 
ences and  arts  of  peace,  outweighs  the  harm  she 
has  done  by  promoting  war.  Because  of  the 
good  she  has  done  and  in  the  future  may  do,  we 
believe  her  entitled  to  a  larger  share  of  nature's 
bounties  than  has  fallen  to  her  lot  by  the  hit-or- 
miss  methods  of  distributing  those  bounties  that 


2  WAR,  SCIENCE 

have   hitherto   prevailed,   even   among  civilized 
peoples. 

II.    WHAT  SCIENCE  IS  PURPORTED  TO 
TEACH  AND  WHAT  IT  DOES  TEACH 

Though  the  reasoning  of  brutalistic  mili- 
tarists of  whatever  country  cannot  be  accepted 
in  its  entirety,  neither  can  it  be  rejected  in  its 
entirety.  "  The  idea,"  says  a  recent  German 
writer,  "  of  settling  by  arbitration  the  question 
as  to  whether  a  hungry  man  may  take  a  loaf  of 
which  he  has  the  full  physical  strength  to 
possess  himself  is  chimerical  and  quixotic." 
There  is  no  escape  from  the  truth  summed  up  in 
this  figure.  But  it  does  not  cover  the  whole 
case.  Such  situations  constitute  what  milita- 
rists of  the  von  Bernhardi  and  Homer  Lea  type 
regard  as  the  biological  necessity  for  war.  As  a 
biologist,  I  would  insist  that  the  argument  which 
would  make  war  everlastingly  necessary  on  such 
grounds  implies  a  limitation  to  the  conception  of 
"  biological "  that  is  utterly  inadmissible  by 
biology  itself.  Biology  never  stops  and  never 
can  stop  in  its  dealings  with  any  animal  by  re- 
garding it  as  just  an  animal  in  an  unrestrained 
sense.  It  always  deals  with  some  particular 
kind  or  species  of  animal.  The  fish  must  be 
treated  as  a  fish,  and  the  bird  as  a  bird. 
Neither  can  be  disposed  of  by  merely  attending 
to  such  general  attributes  as  need  for  food  and 


AND  CIVILIZATION  3 

propagation,  common  to  both,  and  to  all  ani- 
mals. 

In  exactly  the  same  way  is  it  impossible  for 
biology  to  consider  man  as  just  an  animal.  If 
it  touches  him  at  all  it  must  touch  him  as  the 
human  animal.  Confusion  of  thought  in  this 
matter,  not  only  among  laymen  but  among  many 
biologists,  is  amazing,  and  has  led  to  the  most 
bizarre  speculations  about  man,  some  of  these 
being  truly  direful  in  their  effects  on  human  out- 
look and  conduct. 

In  the  light  of  this  simple  zoological  principle, 
such  creations  as  Friedrich  Nietzsche's  "  Blonde 
Beast  "  is  seen  to  have  just  as  much  and  just  as 
little  claim  to  serious  attention  as  have  satyrs 
and  centaurs.  Because  man  retains  some  of  the 
attributes  of  his  animal  ancestors  which  may 
come  to  the  front  in  their  ancient,  or  even  in 
augmented  force,  under  exceptional  conditions, 
as  in  feeble-mindedness  and  insanity,  it  does  not 
follow  that  all  men  should  be  looked  upon  as 
insane  or  feeble-minded. 

So  biology,  having  been  drawn  into  this  dis- 
cussion by  showing  that  it  would  sanction  war 
in  such  special  cases  as  that  symbolized  by  the 
hungry  man  and  the  loaf  of  bread,  is  bound  to 
repel  the  attempt  to  make  it  justify  war  gener- 
ally, especially  since  that  involves  the  attempt  to 
hamper  biology  in  the  use  of  one  of  her  best  es- 
tablished, most  cherished  procedures  —  that  of 


4  WAR,  SCIENCE 

treating  each  animal  on  the  basis  of  its  most  dis- 
tinctive attributes.  While  biology  freely  ad- 
mits that  the  hungry  man,  like  any  other  hungry 
animal,  is  bound  to  steal  food  or  fight  for  it  if 
necessary,  it  is  at  the  same  time  compelled  by 
the  facts  to  recognize  that  as  a  human  animal, 
endowed  with  reason,  and  foresight,  and  in- 
ventive talent,  and  humane  sentiments,  man  de- 
humanizes himself  if  he  does  not  use  these  en- 
dowments to  forestall  situations  that  would 
make  hunger  press  thus  severely  upon  him. 

There  is  a  famous  saying  that  man  does  not 
live  by  bread  alone.  This  is  better  biology  by 
a  thousand  times  than  those  inculcations  which 
would  have  his  life  depend  chiefly  on  his  general 
animal  attributes  and  ignore  for  the  most  part 
those  attributes  that  make  him  a  special  kind 
of  animal,  namely  a  rational,  an  esthetic,  a 
moral,  and  a  religious  animal.  Nobody,  and 
especially  no  biologist,  can  notice  too  particu- 
larly that  the  man  who  does  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  is  exactly  the  man  we  call  civilized. 
While  in  the  savage  state  he  does  live  by  food 
chiefly,  his  outgrowing  this  is  just  what  carries 
him  into  the  civilized  state.  But  despite  all 
philosophizing  to  the  contrary,  he  who  has 
actually  experienced  the  deprivations  of  extreme 
poverty  knows  to  a  certainty  that  high  spiritual 
well-being  is  inseparably  linked  with  high  physi- 
cal well-being;  that  the  best  things  of  civiliza- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  5 

tion  are  impossible  apart  from  bodily  health  and 
a  due  measure  of  material  wealth.  So  it  comes 
about  that  individuals  and  peoples  most  able  to 
contribute  to  civilization,  and  most  capable  of 
enjoying  its  fruits,  and  so  most  in  need  of  such 
enjoyments,  cannot  and  will  not  stand  by  in 
passive  want  while  riches,  largely  contributed 
by  their  own  intelligence  and  industry,  are  en- 
joyed by  others  who  possess  the  earth  beyond 
their  ability  of  wise  utilization. 

By  restating  man's  need  for  bread  in  this 
broader  way  we  get  at  the  heart  of  the  whole 
matter,  namely,  the  question  of  how  man's  fore- 
sight may  be  so  employed  as  to  avert  the  crises 
which  hunger  inevitably  brings.  And  inci- 
dentally we  raise  the  present  issue  above  that  of 
whether  Germany  with  her  present  geographical 
boundaries  had  reached,  or  indeed  ever  would 
reach,  the  position  of  the  starving  man.  A 
balancing  of  the  accounts  of  civilization  on  the 
basis  of  services  rendered  and  compensations  re- 
ceived, would  give  her  more  than  she  now  has  of 
the  earth's  primal  resources.  And  it  cannot  be 
too  clearly  seen  that  all  of  Western  civilization 
has  a  vital  interest  in  justice  to  the  Teutons 
touching  this  matter.  Assuming  their  fecun- 
dity, and  their  industrial,  their  intellectual,  and 
their  artistic  activity  to  continue  unabated  — 
and  there  is  no  reason  for  assuming  otherwise 
—  it  is  inevitable  that  ere  long  economic  pres- 


6  WAR,  SCIENCE 

sure  upon  them  relatively  to  what  it  would  be  on 
several  of  the  other  peoples  foremost  in  civiliza- 
tion, would  be  so  severe  as  to  cause  them  depriva- 
tion and  affect  disadvantageous^  their  achieve- 
ments for  the  higher  reaches  of  civilization. 
Indeed,  it  would  be  easy  to  point  to  certain  un- 
toward features  of  present-day  German  science 
that  seem  due,  partly  at  least,  to  over-intense 
competition  for  a  livelihood. 

But  these  considerations  of  economic  justice 
as  between  peoples  and  nations  do  not  apply  to 
Germany  alone.  Indeed,  hardly  any  question 
is  more  fundamentally  international.  Mani- 
festly other  nations  are  almost  if  not  quite  as 
inadequately  rewarded  for  what  they  have  done, 
as  insufficiently  provisioned  for  future  work,  as 
the  Germans.  This  is  notably  true  as  touching 
the  Dutch,  the  Belgians,  the  Danes,  and  the 
Japanese. 

III.    CIVILIZATION  AS  A  BIOLOGIST  SEES  IT 

Sociology  and  politics  that  have  gone  to  bi- 
ology for  as  much  of  their  foundations  as  are 
in  the  nature  of  things  requisite,  will  surely 
recognize  that  civilization  is  a  broader  and 
deeper  category  than  race,  peoples,  nation,  or 
state;  and  one  of  the  most  urgent  needs  of  the 
hour  is  to  so  define  this  category  as  to  make  it 
more  practically  operative  in  social  science  and 


AND  CIVILIZATION  7 

politics,  national  and  international.  One  result 
of  such  clarification  would  be  to  compel  atten- 
tion to  the  integrating  function  of  civilization 
as  among  peoples  and  nations.  And  a  foremost 
result  of  this,  again,  would  surely  be  to  bring 
home  the  necessity  of  better  distribution  of  the 
primal  sources  of  wealth  and  the  fruits  of  toil 
than  has  hitherto  prevailed  in  civilization. 
"  Better  distribution,"  be  it  noted,  is  what  the 
situation  demands  rather  than  juster  distribu- 
tion, since  the  question  is  not  merely,  indeed  not 
chiefly,  that  of  securing  to  individuals  and  na- 
tions what  is  due  them  for  the  services  they  have 
performed ;  but  rather  that  of  putting  into  their 
hands  means  by  which  they  may  continue  to 
render  in  the  highest  degree  the  peculiar  services 
for  which  they  are  fitted.  Justice  in  evolution- 
ary ethics  looks  forward  as  well  as  backward. 
It  aims  to  reward  not  merely  on  the  basis  of  the 
good  already  done  but  on  estimates  of  ability 
for  doing  future  good. 

This  brings  us  to  the  kernel  of  this  discussion, 
and,  as  it  seems  to  the  writer,  to  the  supreme 
question  our  nation  will  have  to  grapple  with  if 
it  would  accomplish  anything  significant  toward 
world  peace.  That  question  is,  can  we  present 
any  practical  plan  whereby  nations  foremost  in 
the  march  of  civilization  shall  be  assured  such 
portions  of  the  primal  resources  of  nature  as  are 


8  WAR,  SCIENCE 

necessary  to  enable  them  to  maintain  the  places 
they  have  won,  without  having  to  resort  to  war 
to  secure  them? 

IV.    NATIONS  ESSENTIAL  TO  CIVILIZATION 

Before  undertaking  to  answer  the  question 
another  point  must  be  touched  upon.  Many 
persons  believe  ease  of  migration  from  one  coun- 
try to  another,  with  unhampered  privileges  of 
naturalization,  and  for  pursuit  of  vocation,  to 
be  capable  of  solving  the  problem  of  national 
congestion.  But  due  consideration  being  given 
the  facts  of  "  nature  and  nations,"  borrowing 
a  phrase  favorite  with  Thomas  Jefferson,  we  are 
not  warranted  in  expecting  to  find  the  solution 
in  this  direction.  Those  countries  standing 
highest  in  civilization  are  exactly  the  ones  in 
which  citizenship  and  residence  are  most  desira- 
ble, and  hence  those  calculated  to  attract  im- 
migration. The  correctness  of  this  supposition 
is  indicated  by  Germany's  experience.  Consid- 
erably more  than  half  her  large  annual  increase 
in  population  is  due,  as  pointed  out  by  Edmund 
von  Mach,  to  immigration.  Nor  will  those  who 
have  read  this  author's  illuminating  book  fail 
to  recall  the  explanation  he  gives.  Largely  be- 
cause of  her  welfare  legislation  "  Germany  has 
become,"  he  writes,  "  a  good  country  in  which 
to  live,  and  in  which  to  look  contentedly  into 
the  future  and  to  one's  old  age,  even  if  one  is  a 


AND  CIVILIZATION  9 

poor  man."  It  does  not  seem  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  citizens  of  countries  that  stand  at 
the  highest  levels  of  civilization  will  be  likely  to 
renounce  such  citizenship  in  large  numbers  to 
acquire  citizenship  in  countries  of  inferior  civili- 
zation. 

The  highest  civilization  might  be  defined  as 
that  state  of  human  society  which  secures  the 
greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number,  so  that 
theoretically  those  who  live  in  such  a  society 
will  not  be  inclined  to  abandon  it.  A  really 
high  civilization  seems  to  be  impossible  without 
great  solicitude  and  activity  on  the  part  of  the 
national  government  for  the  "  general  welfare," 
as  our  Federal  Constitution  puts  it.  Espe- 
cially are  those  attributes  of  a  high  civilization 
which  manifest  themselves  in  securing  as  great 
a  measure  as  feasible  of  safety,  comfort,  intelli- 
gence, efficiency,  and  happiness  to  the  great 
rank  and  file,  impossible  without  much  of  what 
is  known  as  welfare  legislation.  While  many 
such  measures  may  be  best  left  to  subordinate 
political  divisions,  the  main  impetus  to  such  en- 
actments, and  many  of  the  measures  themselves, 
must  probably  always  come  from  the  central 
government.  Recent  tendencies  in  all  the  fore- 
most countries  toward  what  is  called  state  so- 
cialism confirms  this  view.  Now,  when  to  the 
binding  power  of  governmental  policies  are 
added  the  ties  of  language,  race,  and  social  cus- 


10  WAR,  SCIENCE 

toms,  it  seems  inevitable  that  national  life 
should  gain  in  importance  rather  than  diminish, 
as  some  persons  of  noble  catholicity  of  feeling 
touching  a  few  aspects  of  human  life  believe. 
Those  who  minimize  devotion  to  the  flag  fail  to 
see  its  full  meaning  for  the  great  masses  of 
average  people.  The  believers  in  a  world  patri- 
otism that  would  supplant  national  patriotism 
are  viewing  the  problems  of  human  life  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  essentially  unifying  interests 
of  men,  and  overlooking  the  equally  essential  di- 
versifying interests.  A  few  who  live  on  Easy 
Street  so  far  as  worldly  goods  are  concerned, 
whose  vital  interests  lie  in  those  fields  of  learn- 
ing, or  art,  or  business,  which  have  a  large  ele- 
ment of  the  universal  about  them,  and  who  are 
not  over-sensitive  for  the  welfare  of  the  great 
masses  of  their  fellow  beings  less  fortunately 
circumstanced  than  they,  may  outgrow  the  sen- 
timents of  national  patriotism.  But  just  in  the 
proportion  that  the  civilization  of  a  country  be- 
comes truly  higher  must  this  class  become 
smaller.  The  cosmopolitanism  that  we  must 
suppose  will  gradually  arise  with  the  general 
advance  of  civilization  will  be  international 
rather  than  super-national ;  will  be  attended  by 
the  co-ordination,  the  integration,  rather  than 
by  extinguishment,  or  even  suppression,  of  na- 
tional life  and  ideals. 


AND  CIVILIZATION  11 

V.  THE  REAL  PROBLEM 
So  there  comes  before  us  in  clear  light  one 
of  the  chief  problems,  probably,  in  this  stage 
of  world  progress,  the  chief  problem  to  be  solved 
before  real  headway  can  be  made  toward  freeing 
civilization  from  warfare.  Can  a  way  be  found 
whereby  the  nations  of  the  world,  some  of  which 
truly  need  a  larger  share  of  nature's  wealth 
than  they  possess,  while  others  possess  more 
than  they  really  need,  may  adjust  their  relative 
needs  without  resort  to  war?  Or,  stating  the 
matter  still  more  pointedly,  is  an  international 
arrangement  possible  whereby  a  nation  might 
under  certain  circumstances  give  over  to  other 
nations  portions  of  its  territory  or  other  eco- 
nomic advantages  peacefully,  deliberately,  and 
without  immediate  and  definite  compensation? 
The  suggestion  even  in  the  form  of  a  question 
will  probably  seem  too  absurd  to  merit  a  mo- 
ment's thought  by  practical  men.  My  own 
categorical  answer  to  the  question  is,  no,  as 
long  as  politics,  national  and  international,  rest 
on  a  philosophy  of  nature  and  human  nature  so 
defective  as  that  upon  which  they  now  do  rest; 
but  yes,  if  political  practice  could  be  based  on 
a  philosophy  that  should  conform  to  the  actual 
facts  of  nature  and  human  nature.  An  argu- 
ment for  such  a  philosophy  as  that  upon  which 
my  affirmative  answer  depends  is  the  real  task 
of  this  essay. 


12  WAR,  SCIENCE 

VI.    PARTNERSHIP   BETWEEN   POLITICS  AND 
SCIENCE  IN  GOVERNING  THE  WORLD 

Proceeding  with  the  task,  I  ask,  have  not  the 
peoples  most  forward  in  civilization  now 
reached  a  point  where  they  are  able  to  think 
part  of  the  time  on  international  relationships 
in  terms  other  than  the  traditional  ones  of  the 
chancellery  and  the  war  office? 

Surely  no  one  needs  to  be  laboriously  shown 
that  extensive,  careful  observation  on  the  facts 
of  nature  and  reasoning  about  them, —  that  is, 
science, —  has  cut  a  large  figure  in  making  the 
world  as  the  abode  of  man  what  it  is  today. 
Nothing  is  more  obvious  than  that  science  has 
contributed  incalculably  to  the  shaping  of 
things  as  they  now  are,  to  the  development  of 
civilized  man.  But  reflection  enables  us  to  see 
that  practical  politics,  whether  domestic  or  for- 
eign, cannot  be  in  a  high  degree  scientific ;  espe- 
cially that  diplomacy  cannot.  The  meeting  of 
exigencies,  the  out-of-hand  adjustment  of  in- 
terests, conflicting  here  and  now,  appear  to  be 
the  main  business  of  diplomacy. 

Much  the  same  seems  true  of  most  efforts  in 
the  domain  of  politics.  The  methods  of  science 
are  not  adapted  to  dealing  with  such  matters 
of  expediency,  they  being  quite  alien  to  the 
spirit  of  science.  Without  great  deliberation 
and  endless  going  back  to  fundamental  princi- 
ples there  is  no  science.  That  experimenta/ ion, 


AND  CIVILIZATION  13 

perhaps  the  most  characteristic  and  indispens- 
able instrument  of  science,  necessarily  means  a 
certain  number  of  discards  and  failures,  is  a 
fact  far  too  little  understood  by  people  gener- 
ally. Much  as  the  tree  of  science  has  produced 
and  is  producing  for  the  good  of  mankind,  it 
could  produce  still  more  richly  were  not  the 
popular  demand  so  insistent  that  it  bring  forth 
fruit  'in  some  other  way  than  by  the  laborious, 
time-consuming,  expensive  one  of  sap-elabora- 
tion through  root,  branch,  leaf,  and  blossom. 
These  remarks  about  science  lead  to  the  ques- 
tion, if  then,  politics  must  be  something  other 
than  scientific,  does  it  follow  that  science  can 
contribute  nothing  to  this  great  domain  of 
man's  concern?  By  no  means.  While  politics 
can  never  be  a  science  in  a  strict  sense,  it  can- 
not measure  up  to  the  real  needs  of  modern 
civilization  unless  it  rests  on  a  foundation  a 
large  part  of  which  is  science.  The  distinction 
is  fundamental.  Nicolo  Machiavelli  is  said  to 
have  been  the  first  to  attempt  to  formulate  in- 
ductively a  science  of  politics.  From  his  time 
until  this  moment  efforts  to  realize  his  ideal  in 
this  respect  have  continued,  but  have  come  far 
short  of  complete  success.  The  old  Florentine 
and  his  followers  have  succeeded  in  so  far  as  they 
have  been  able  to  view  politics  as  genuinely  poli- 
tics and  not  mere  aspects  of  something  else. 
They  have  succeeded  also  to  the  extent  that  they 


14  WAR,  SCIENCE 

have  acquired  the  ability  to  deal  with  vital  prob- 
lems of  government  as  though  to  them  they  had 
none  other  than  a  professional  interest,  that  is, 
with  self-interest  and  ulterior  motive  entirely 
eliminated.  But  after  all  this  is  said,  there  is  yet 
to  be  recognized  a  wide  margin  in  practical 
politics  which  by  the  nature  of  things  must  be 
essentially  unscientific.  And  there  is  also  to  be 
recognized  in  the  substructure  of  the  political 
edifice  that  which  is  not  politics,  but  science. 

Let  us  see  now  if  the  suggestion  that  a  na- 
tion might  under  certain  conditions  peacefully 
give  up  some  of  its  territory,  would  look  absurd 
to  a  theory  of  politics  that  should  be  scientific 
to  the  extent  and  in  the  sense  above  indicated. 
First  of  all,  attention  must  be  called  to  a  few 
elements  entering  into  the  question  that  are  al- 
ways recognized  as  resting  on  principles  of 
nature  far  removed  from  the  political  realm. 
For  example,  the  "  instinct  of  propagation," 
and  the  "  law  of  diminishing  returns  "  of  indus- 
try, are  manifestly  of  this  character.  The  first 
is  primarily  biological,  the  second  is  primarily 
agricultural  and  industrial.  Again,  "  the 
struggle  for  existence "  and  "  natural  selec- 
tion "  now  being  invoked  by  militarists  in  justi- 
fication of  war,  and  by  anti-militarists  in  con- 
demnation of  it,  are,  as  everyone  knows,  biolog- 
ical conceptions,  pure  and  simple. 

So  while  politics  can  never  be  wholly  scien- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  15 

tific,  it  is  indubitable  that  modern  politics  have 
and  must  have  a  great  substructure  of  science. 
No  modern  state  or  city  thinks  of  conducting 
its  affairs  in  entire  disregard  of  the  sciences  of 
chemistry,  and  mechanics,  and  medicine,  and 
hygiene,  and  agriculture,  and  evolution,  and 
now  of  eugenics.  Would  it  not  thus  be  a  good 
thing  if  everybody,  governing  and  governed, 
would  examine  still  more  critically  and  broadly 
the  foundations  on  which  modern  political  sys- 
tems rest,  to  the  end  of  seeing  if  there  is  not 
serious  defect  somewhere  in  the  foundation  doc- 
trines concerning  the  holding  and  distribution  of 
natural  wealth? 

VII.     THE   PROBLEM  OF  DISTRIBUTING 
WEALTH  POTENTIAL  AND  ACTUAL 

Early  in  the  discussion  reference  was  made 
to  a  hypothetical  hungry  man  and  a  loaf  of 
bread.  It  was  admitted  that  it  would  be  ab- 
surd and  quixotic  to  attempt  to  arbitrate  with 
the  man  taking  the  loaf  under  the  conditions 
specified.  But  it  was  also  intimated  that  from 
the  biological  standpoint  it  would  be  wholly  in- 
consistent, not  to  say  absurd,  for  civilized  men 
not  to  foresee  such  situations  and  take  measures 
for  preventing  them.  We  have  now  to  consider 
those  general  principles  of  nature  and  human 
nature  upon  which  man,  the  human  animal, 
would  base  his  efforts  to  ward  off  in  the  most 
effective  fashion  crises  of  national  want. 


16  WAR,  SCIENCE 

It  ought  to  be  seen  that  the  problem  of  dis- 
tribution of  territory  among  the  nations  is 
really  but  an  aspect  of  the  more  general  prob- 
lem so  vehemently  discussed  today  of  a  better, 
more  equitable  distribution  of  the  earth's  wealth, 
actual  and  potential,  than  has  hitherto  pre- 
vailed. In  its  full  scope  the  problem  is  intra- 
national  as  well  as  international.  It  is  the  main 
problem  of  "  war  between  capital  and  labor  "  as 
well  as  of  war  between  nations. 

Science  has  a  way  of  going  to  great  pains  to 
state  its  problems  before  it  undertakes  to  solve 
them.  Stated  in  its  most  general  terms  the 
problem  is  that  of  allotting  the  earth  among  the 
peoples  of  the  earth  in  proportion  to  their  abil- 
ity to  use  it  well.  It  is  the  problem  of  placing 
the  wealth  of  nature  where  it  is  most  needed  and 
where  it  will  do  the  most  good.  The  particular 
aspect  of  the  problem  before  us  is  that  of  mak- 
ing this  allotment  among  the  political  entities ; 
that  is,  the  states  of  the  earth.  And  we  are 
especially  concerned  with  the  part  which  war 
plays  and  can  play  in  effecting  that  allotment. 

From  the  scientific,  yes,  from  the  common 
sense  standpoint,  one  of  the  urgent  reasons  for 
wanting  to  accomplish  this  end  by  peaceful 
means  is  the  desirability  of  avoiding  the  destruc- 
tiveness  of  wealth  that  war  entails.  On  the  face 
of  the  matter  nothing  seems  more  anomalous, 
more  unfortunate,  than  that  a  system  of  dis- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  17 

tributing  the  necessities  of  men's  existence 
among  the  political  divisions  of  the  earth,  should 
be  in  vogue  whereby  in  order  that  men  may  get 
that  which  they  must  have,  they  are  obliged  to 
destroy  a  large  portion  of  that  for  which  they 
are  striving.  Nor  is  the  anomaly  of  the  sys- 
tem found  to  be  less  by  closer  inspection.  One 
cannot  justly  compare  the  consumption  by  war 
with  those  forms  of  consumption  in  industrial 
operations  where  some  of  the  force  employed  is 
used  up  in  the  operation  itself,  and  does  not  con- 
tribute directly  to  the  end  aimed  at.  To  illus- 
trate, there  is  no  such  definite  and  necessary 
relation  between  the  property  and  lives  con- 
sumed in  war  and  the  economic  advantages  which 
may  flow  from  it  as  there  is  between  the  utiliza- 
ble  and  the  non-utilizable  energy  of  the  fuel 
consumed  by  a  steam  engine.  In  the  case  of 
the  coal  and  the  engine,  given  knowledge  of  the 
initial  conditions,  there  is  no  element  of  un- 
certainty and  haphazardness.  The  operator 
knows  exactly  what  to  count  on.  How  differ- 
ent with  the  nation  which  goes  to  war  with  gain 
as  its  aim! 

Again,  those  who  defend  war  as  a  means  of 
gaining  territory  or  other  economic  advantage, 
and  refer  to  the  biological  struggle  for  existence 
as  a  justification,  seem  to  forget  that  the  strug- 
gle as  it  goes  on  in  sub-human  nature  does  not 
consist  in  depriving  all  the  contestants  by  whole- 


18  WAR,  SCIENCE 

sale  destruction  of  the  very  thing  struggled  for. 
Two  lions  fighting  over  the  carcass  of  a  deer 
would  not  unite  their  efforts  to  sink  it  to  the 
bottom  of  the  sea.  One  or  the  other  would  be 
sure  of  a  good  meal.  The  sub-human  struggle 
for  the  means  of  sustenance  results  in  the  de- 
struction or  defeat  of  some  of  the  combatants 
merely;  while  that  among  human  beings,  espe- 
cially those  living  under  civilization,  results  in 
destroying  not  only  some  of  the  combatants,  but 
much  of  the  goods  over  which  they  fight.  From 
this  standpoint,  so-called  civilized  warfare  is  far 
less  scientific  than  the  pillaging  warfare  among 
savages,  which  aims  chiefly  at  capturing  and 
carrying  off  the  goods  for  which  it  is  waged. 

VIII.    SCIENCE  EMPLOYED  FOR  AND 
AGAINST  WAR 

An  exceedingly  important  consideration 
looms  up  in  favor  of  the  contention  that  a  scien- 
tific substructure  of  politics  should  be  prepared 
before  the  situations  arise  with  which  unaided 
politics  cannot  cope.  The  scientific  founda- 
tions for  war  are  laid  before  the  wars  are  waged, 
with  the  greatest  care ;  and  it  is  because  of  this 
that  war  has  become  so  destructive,  and  hence 
so  defeating  of  the  ends  which  the  means  are 
supposed  to  accomplish.  That  desperate  situa- 
tions will  arise  is  foreseen,  and  all  the  resources 
of  science  that  can  contribute  to  the  effective- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  19 

ness  of  war  are  called  into  play  for  meeting 
these  situations  when  they  shall  arise;  while 
only  part  of  the  resources  of  science  making  for 
peace  are  called  upon  for  the  peaceful  adjust- 
ment of  such  situations.  In  times  of  peace  sci- 
ence is  made  full  use  of  to  prepare  for  war,  but 
is  not  made  full  use  of  to  remove  the  cause  of 
war.  In  the  present  war,  submarines,  air  crafts, 
wireless  telegraphy,  and  high  power  guns  are 
upsetting  precedent  in  all  sorts  of  ways,  and 
making  the  struggle  the  most  gigantic  and  de- 
structive the  world  has  ever  seen.  Later  we 
shall  say  considerable  about  unforeseeable  dis- 
coveries science  is  likely  to  make  in  the  future 
for  supplying  man's  physical  wants.  At  this 
point  attention  must  be  called  to  the  likelihood 
of  such  discoveries  for  waging  war.  There  is 
not  the  least  reason  to  suppose  man's  power  of 
discovery  and  invention,  and  nature's  resources 
for  these  powers  to  work  upon  have  been  ex- 
hausted in  producing  instruments  of  war. 
What  may  yet  be  done  in  the  way  of  more  effi- 
cient explosives,  and  better  means  of  navigating 
the  air  and  the  depths  of  the  sea,  and  in  nu- 
merous other  ways,  no  one  can  tell.  In  the  last 
two  mentioned  matters  particularly,  only  a  be- 
ginning seems  to  have  been  made.  From  the 
standpoint  of  science,  the  warrantable  predic- 
tion is  that  so  long  as  the  nations  are  producing 
many  highly  trained  scientific  men,  and  are  pro- 


20  WAR,  SCIENCE 

viding  them  with  facilities  for  research,  and  en- 
abling them  to  devote  their  lives  to  it,  and  are 
calling  for  new  military  appliances,  these  will 
be  forthcoming.  The  only  limit  that  can  be 
seen  to  making  the  instrumental  devices  for  tear 
more  destructive  is  the  costliness  in  time  and 
money  of  investigation  and  of  the  manufacture 
and  employment  of  the  devices  that  may  be  pro- 
duced. 

Viewing  the  history  of  the  leading  nations 
during  the  last  half  century  in  the  light  of  the 
course  and  nature  of  scientific  discovery,  the 
supposition  seems  justified  that  civilization  is 
well  on  the  road  to  self-destruction  through  its 
power  of  creating  and  using  mechanical  appli- 
ances for  thus  disposing  of  itself. 

What  has  science  to  offer  which  could  be  put 
into  the  substructure  of  politics  to  enable  the 
latter  to  so  redistribute  the  natural  wealth  of 
the  earth  from  time  to  time  as  to  obviate  the 
necessity  for  resorting  to  war?  This  is  the  su- 
preme question. 

Two  great  masses  of  achievement  by  science 
are  available  for  such  service.  Both  would  do 
their  work  mainly  through  their  effect  on  the 
large  conceptions,  faiths,  and  attitudes  of  men. 
The  first  would  enable  men  to  see  that  while  the 
resources  of  nature  necessary  for  man's  exist- 
ence are  undoubtedly  limited  in  one  sense,  in 
another  sense  they  are  not.  They  are  not  lim- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  21 

ited  if  only  the  whole  earth  and  the  whole  of  na- 
ture that  might  be  used  were  actually  so  used. 
The  problem  of  making  them  usable,  and  then 
using  them  so  that  their  fullest  utility  shall  be 
realized,  is  one  of  the  very  problems  of  contin- 
ued advance  in  civilization.  Nature's  resources 
are  actually  limited  for  partly  cirvttized  man,  but 
potentially  unlimited  for  fully  civilized  man. 

IX.    MALTHUSIANISM  NARROWLY  VIEWED 
AND  BROADLY  VIEWED 

Authorities  on  political  economy  differ  fun- 
damentally as  to  the  validity  of  the  Malthusian 
doctrine  about  the  pressure  of  population  on  the 
means  of  support.  We  ought  therefore  to  rec- 
ognize that  the  "  inner  tragedy  "  of  the  popu- 
lation problem  of  which  some  economists  speak, 
is  largely  a  matter  of  the  theoretical  views  one 
holds.  There  are  so  many  tragedies  of  all  sorts 
in  human  life  that  the  whole  of  life  looks  like  a 
tragedy  to  a  dull  and  narrow  philosophy.  The 
undeveloped  and  unused  or  misused  resources  of 
nature  are  vast  beyond  calculation.  If  one 
considers  only  the  agricultural  lands  of  the 
earth,  usually  treated  in  speculative  discussions 
on  these  matters  as  the  controlling  factor,  he 
cannot  but  see  how  indefinitely  far  away  is  the 
time  when  the  full  productive  capability  of  the 
soil  shall  have  been  utilized. 

Some  recent  writers  whose  philosophy  of  life 


22  WAR,  SCIENCE 

requires  them  to  ignore  as  far  as  possible  what 
is  human  in  human  beings,  speak  of  the  "  satura- 
tion "  of  the  earth  by  people.  For  the  sake  of 
argument  let  us  grant  that  certain  areas  of 
Europe,  Asia,  and  North  America  are  "  satu- 
rated " ;  that  is,  are  already  supporting  as 
many  human  beings  as  possible  in  comfort  and 
happiness.  The  enormous  unsaturated  areas 
in  Africa,  Northern  Asia,  both  Americas,  Aus- 
tralia, and  the  great  Archipelagoes  of  the  Pa- 
cific and  Atlantic  Oceans  must  be  kept  in  mind. 
That  considerable  tracts  of  these  are  "  taken 
up  "  and  are  no  longer  actually  virgin  soil,  but 
are  being  used  to  a  slight  extent  by  civilized 
man,  cannot  be  allowed  for  a  moment  to  consti- 
tute a  saturation  of  them  if  any  meaning  ac- 
ceptable to  scientific  agriculture  be  attached  to 
the  word  "  saturate."  One  of  the  most  infalli- 
ble tests  of  a  people's  grade  of  civilization  is 
exactly  that  of  the  extent  to  which  they  develop 
the  natural  wealth  of  the  land  they  occupy, 
and  the  use  they  make  of  that  wealth.  Nor  can 
the  seas  be  ignored.  Important  as  are  the  fish- 
ing industries  of  a  few  regions,  to  the  eyes  of 
science  the  exploitation  of  the  earth's  waters  for 
their  organic  products  as  a  source  of  human 
food  has  hardly  begun. 

Giving  due  consideration  to  these  facts  and  to 
the  now  well-established  fact  that  scientific  agri- 
culture is  able  to  increase  soil  productively  be- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  23 

yond  what  could  be  seen  a  few  decades  ago,  po- 
litical economy  of  our  day  has  definitely  rejected 
the  hard  and  fast  Malthusian  formula  about  the 
arithmetical  increase  of  means  of  support  and  the 
geometrical  increase  of  population.  Even  so,  it 
would  be  folly  to  ignore  a  sort  of  inevitable 
pressure  of  population  upon  sustenance  with  the 
advance  in  civilization.  "  Again  and  again," 
writes  an  obviously  conservative  and  careful 
economist,  "  we  are  driven  back  to  diminishing 
returns  as  a  fundamental  limiting  factor,  not 
only  of  wages,  but  of  interest  and  profits."  It 
cannot  be  too  strongly  insisted  that  "  limiting 
factor  "  as  here  used  need  not  be  fatalistically 
interpreted;  indeed,  cannot  be  so  interpreted, 
if  taken  in  a  rigorously  scientific  sense.  Given 
nature  as  science  now  knows  it,  and  assuming 
the  unimpeded  continuance  of  scientific  discov- 
ery, particularly  in  synthetic  chemistry  and  sev- 
eral branches  of  biology,  one  can  readily  see 
that  it  is  not  warrantable  to  base  dire  predic- 
tions for  the  future  of  the  human  race  on  the 
assumption  of  limitation  to  discovery.  This 
follows  from  the  utter  unpredictability  of  what 
particular  discoveries  science  may  make.  The 
Greeks,  for  example,  had  absolutely  no  foothold 
to  start  from  for  the  prediction  of  discoveries 
in  gravitation,  electricity,  and  the  circulation 
of  the  blood.  And  a  century  ago  who  could 
foresee  the  discovery  of  electrons,  and  of  radia- 


24  WAR,  SCIENCE 

tion,  and  of  the  Mendelian  mode  of  inheritance? 
The  truth  is,  really  epochal  discoveries  in  sci- 
ence are  epochal  largely  because  of  their  com- 
plete breaking  away  from  previous  knowledge 
and  ideas ;  because,  in  other  words,  of  their  un- 
forescenness.  This  is  a  fascinating  subject,  but 
cannot  be  followed  here.  The  point  to  be  firmly 
established  is  that  the  history  of  science  makes 
it  wholly  unjustifiable  to  base  any  argument  on 
the  assumption  that  man's  knowledge  of  nature 
and  control  over  her  will  remain  even  approxi- 
mately what  they  now  are.  Indeed,  so  large  a 
segment  of  this  history  is  now  open  to  inspec- 
tion that  we  are  justified  in  making  the  forecast 
that  if  science  goes  ahead  with  the  momentum 
it  has  now  acquired,  revolutionary  discoveries 
will  continue  to  be  made,  some  of  which  —  and 
here  is  the  vital  point  for  the  present  discussion 
—  will  revolutionize  this  very  matter  of  food 
supply.  Indeed  there  is  already  ground  more 
substantial  than  poetic  fancy  for  predicting  a 
time  when  food  will  be  fabricated,  perhaps  by 
physiologico-chemical  processes  through  the  ac- 
tion of  minimal  quantities  of  living  material  on 
the  inorganic  constituents  of  food.  This  sug- 
gestion does  not  touch  in  the  least  the  problem 
so  feverishly  speculated  on  —  the  "  artificial 
creation  of  life."  It  should  always  be  borne  in 
mind  that  we  do  not  eat  organic  beings,  whole 
and  alive.  It  is  rather  with  certain  products  of 


AND  CIVILIZATION  25 

such  beings  that  we  nourish  and  clothe  our- 
selves. And  such  products  science  has  already 
gone  far  on  the  way  toward  manufacturing. 

While  it  is  impossible  to  assert  that  science 
will  make  such  discoveries,  we  cannot  reasonably 
predict  tragedies  on  the  assumption  that  she 
will  not  make  them.  Taking  nature  as  it  is, 
and  progressive  scientific  discovery  as  it  is,  we 
have  ample  ground  for  believing  that  the  phys- 
ical necessities  for  the  continued  progress  of 
man  under  civilization  will  be  forthcoming. 
The  question  is  largely  one  of  faith  in  the  eter- 
nity and  infinity  of  the  system  of  nature,  and 
in  man's  sense  of  duty  and  powers  of  mind  and 
skill  of  hand.  From  this  standpoint,  the  words 
"  give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread,"  repeated 
by  so  many  millions  of  the  human  species 
through  so  many  generations,  gain  in  meaning 
an  hundred  fold. 

The  conclusion  is,  then,  that  so  far  as  nature 
and  science  are  concerned,  there  is  ample  reason 
to  believe  that  civilization  might  insure  its  own 
progress  indefinitely,  even  though  "  pressure  of 
population  upon  the  means  of  subsistence  "  be 
accepted  as  an  inevitable  concomitant  of  that 
progress.  But  as  we  have  seen,  an  essential 
condition  of  continued  progress  would  be  the 
utilization  of  all  the  resources  of  nature  to  the 
fullest  extent.  In  the  way  of  doing  this  stands 
the  stupendous  obstacle  of  existing  political 


26  WAR,  SCIENCE 

ideas  and  practices  relative  to  the  ownership  of 
the  primal  resources.  It  seems  unescapable 
that  if  science  is  to  be  enabled  to  do  its  best  for 
civilization,  some  way  will  have  to  be  found  to 
overcome  this  difficulty.  Nothing  could  be 
further  from  scientific  than  the  way  Africa  and 
the  Pacific  Islands  are  being  allotted  among  the 
civilized  nations.  Perhaps  there  is  little  hope 
of  early  reaching  a  rational  basis  in  this  matter. 
Surely  there  would  be  none  were  it  not  for  the 
fact  that  civilized  men  are  ruled  so  largely  by 
general  theories  held  in  the  blindest  way ;  but 
that  these  theories  may  undergo  profound 
change  when  personal  interests  are  seen  to  be  at 
stake ;  and  that,  on  the  whole,  right  theories  ap- 
peal more  to  normal  men  than  wrong  ones. 

X.     AMBITION  FOR  EMPIRE  INCOMPATIBLE 
WITH  HIGH  AMBITION  FOR  CIVILIZATION 

About  the  most  striking  fact  in  connection 
with  the  war  now  raging  is  the  confidence  of  the 
chief  belligerent  nations  that  theirs  is  the  cause 
of  civilization  as  against  barbarism.  But  it  is 
curious  and  significant  that  neither  side  seems 
to  consider  it  necessary  to  say  much  about  what 
civilization  is.  Is  it  not  possible  that  this 
professed  devotion  to  a  common,  but  undefined 
end,  may  be  the  road  to  a  rational  adjustment 
after  a  time  of  the  differences  over  which  they 
contend  ? 


AND  CIVILIZATION  27 

The  bitter  international  hatred  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  intense  national  love  on  the  other, 
with  the  consequent  overthrow  of  reason  now 
prevailing  in  Europe,  will  after  a  while  subside 
to  a  considerable  extent  (pity  that  we  must  not 
expect  it  to  do  so  fully)  and  reason  will  be  in  a 
large  measure  restored  to  its  wonted  place  in 
guiding  the  world's  affairs.  Is  it  too  much  to 
hope  that  when  this  time  comes,  the  leading 
nations  will  take  the  stupendous  cataclysm 
through  which  they  have  passed  as  proof  that 
the  conceptions  on  which  not  only  their  political 
and  economic  systems  rest,  but  also  those  per- 
taining to  other  foremost  elements  in  civiliza- 
tion, need  a  searching  re-examination?  Should 
they  undertake  such  a  task,  and  should  they  still 
maintain  that  their  concern  in  the  great  conflict 
was  primarily,  or  even  largely,  for  civilization, 
I  do  not  see  how  they  could  do  otherwise  than 
try  to  formulate  a  definition  of  civilization  upon 
which  they  could  all  agree  and  which  should  not 
be  so  general  as  to  be  devoid  of  practical  mean- 
ing. Certainly,  were  they  to  approach  the 
problem  in  the  spirit  and  manner  of  science, 
they  would  begin  by  trying  to  formulate  a  defi- 
nition of  this  sort.  Nor  do  I  see  how  they  could 
arrive  at  such  a  definition  without  being  thereby 
led  to  perceive  that  the  war  method  of  settling 
the  great  territorial-economic  problem  is  fun- 
damentally inconsistent  with  this  conception  of 


28  WAR,  SCIENCE 

civilization,  and  must  fail  to  accomplish  the  end 
aimed  at. 

Which  do  the  great  civilized  nations  want 
most,  continued  progress  in  civilization,  or  all 
the  lands  and  waters  they  can  get  hold  of,  no 
matter  by  what  means  and  without  reference  to 
the  interests  of  other  nations?  That  is  the 
question  into  which  the  present  issue  resolves 
itself.  The  realization  of  both  ambitions  is  im- 
possible. One  or  the  other  will  have  to  be  aban- 
doned. More  disastrously  fallacious  reasoning 
was  never  carried  on  than  that  according  to 
which  a  nation's  status  in  civilization  is  depend- 
ent upon  its  territorial  and  economic  extent. 
Because  a  people  cannot  become  a  great  world 
power  unless  they  possess  ample  material  wealth 
and  a  strong,  efficient  political  organization,  it 
by  no  means  follows  that  the  wealth  must  be 
great  without  limit.  The  reasoning  that  would 
justify  strife  for  unlimited  possessions  just  for 
the  sake  of  having  them,  would  be  paralleled  by 
reasoning  that  because  the  individual  cannot  live 
without  food,  therefore  he  should  try  to  eat  all 
the  food  in  sight.  I  believe  it  will  be  recognized 
sooner  or  later  that  the  biological  ground  on 
which  these  two  cases  rest  is  much  the  same. 
From  time  immemorial  the  enervative  and  de- 
generative effect  of  an  inordinate  desire  for 
over-much  wealth  has  been  deplored.  Such 
wealth  has  much  the  same  effect  as  gluttony, 


AND  CIVILIZATION  29 

and  for  much  the  same  reasons.  True,  the  con- 
gestion of  population  in  some  countries  fur- 
nishes a  measure  of  excuse  for  the  fallacy. 
This  is  particularly  true  of  certain  countries  of 
Europe,  the  continent  which  in  modern  times 
seems  to  be  the  special  breeding  ground  of  the 
fallacy.  But  could  European  statesmen  once 
rise  sufficiently  above  the  bewilderments  of  poli- 
tics to  enable  them  to  see  clearly  how  little  the 
location  of  boundary  lines  has  to  do  with  the 
real  problem  of  developing  the  potential  re- 
sources of  the  earth  and  utilizing  them  for  ad- 
vancing civilization,  it  does  seem  as  though  they 
would  open  their  eyes  to  the  folly  of  spending 
so  much  energy,  and  time,  and  treasure,  in  fight- 
ing and  getting  ready  to  fight  about  these 
boundaries, —  about  who  shall  govern  particular 
pieces  of  land  and  groups  of  people.  The  prob- 
lem is  not  one  of  boundaries,  but  of  greater  civi- 
lizing processes ;  not  of  who  shall  govern  a  lim- 
ited area,  but  who  can  best  develop  the  spirit  of 
civilization  for  the  world  at  large. 

We  whose  lots  are  cast  outside  of  Europe 
gladly  recognize  that  about  the  first  and  so  far 
the  best  civilization  has  grown  on  European  soil. 
But  we  cannot  accept  this  as  proof  that  only 
European  soil  is  capable  of  producing  the  best 
of  civilization.  No  European  chemist  has  dis- 
covered ingredients  in  the  soil  of  his  continent 
that  have  peculiar  virtues  for  the  making  of 


30  WAR,  SCIENCE 

civilized  man.  Wheat  is  wheat,  and  rye  is  rye, 
regardless  of  the  soil  that  produced  it,  and  the 
same  is  true  of  civilization.  This  does  not  im- 
ply that  one  locality  is  as  good  as  another  for 
wheat  or  rye,  or  that  all  varieties  of  these  grains 
will  grow  as  well  in  one  region  as  in  another; 
but  that,  given  the  numerous  varieties  of  wheat 
and  rye,  these  two  species  can  be  produced  in 
many  regions  of  the  earth.  What  localities  are 
and  what  are  not  able  to  produce  them  may  be 
discovered,  but  cannot  be  determined  by  politi- 
cal or  any  other  artificial  means. 

So  it  is  with  civilization.  Those  philosophers 
who  would  explain  on  geographical  grounds 
everything  men  are  and  do,  are  committed  to  a 
theory  that  applies  at  best  to  savages.  One  of 
the  chief  functions  of  civilization  is  exactly  that 
of  subjecting  nature,  geographic  influences  with 
the  rest,  to  man's  intellect  and  will. 

XI.    A  LARGER  CONCEPTION  OF  COLONIZA- 
TION AND  OF  MISSIONARY  WORK 

Colonization  and  missionary  work,  under- 
stood in  a  far  different,  because  broader  and 
deeper  sense  than  hitherto,  will,  according  to 
the  doctrine  here  upheld,  have  to  be  more  a  part 
of  the  business  of  civilization  than  it  has  been 
in  the  past.  It  is  much  more  important  now 
for  the  world's  welfare  that  the  colonizing 
nations  should  study  the  problem  of  coloniza- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  31 

tion  than  that  they  should  strive  for  more  lands 
on  which  to  colonize ;  and  to  learn  that  "  con- 
verting "  the  native  peoples  of  uncivilized  por- 
tions of  the  earth  cannot  be  left  wholly  to  re- 
ligious organizations.  Hereafter  civilized  na- 
tions will  be  more  concerned  about  carrying 
their  culture  to  sparsely  settled,  slightly  cul- 
tured countries,  and  in  doing  this  will  find  some 
rational, —  that  is,  in  the  main  peaceful, — 
method  of  locating  and  from  time  to  time  re- 
locating political  boundary  lines.  The  absolute 
fixity  of  these  lines  constitutes  insuperable  bar- 
riers in  many  cases  to  the  full  development  of 
the  areas  so  bounded.  In  the  very  nature  of 
the  case  it  is  impossible  for  war  to  change  these 
lines  in  accordance  with  rational  demands.  The 
fighting  of  a  duel  between  two  farmers  over  the 
ownership  of  a  piece  of  land  could  accomplish 
nothing  towards  increasing  its  productiveness. 
The  interest  of  civilization,  which  all  are  pro- 
fessing to  fight  for,  is  not  primarily  who  owns 
the  piece  of  land,  but  who  will  make  it  produce 
most.  Should  someone  contend  that  the  duel 
method  of  readjustment  is  justified  if  the  farmer 
heretofore  in  possession  of  the  land  did  not  make 
the  best  use  of  it  and  could  not,  while  the  other 
one  could  do  much  better,  the  important  ques- 
tion must  still  be  raised,  but  what  if  the  in- 
competent farmer  should  kill  the  competent  one? 
The  better  duelist  is  by  no  means  necessarily  the 


32  WAR,  SCIENCE 

better  farmer.  Again,  if  the  better  farmer 
should  come  off  victor  in  the  duel,  would  that  of 
itself  till  the  land?  The  indispensables  for  the 
end  sought  are  industry,  capital,  and  scientific 
agriculture;  not  challenges  and  rapiers.  At 
best  the  duel  could  only  fix  the  ownership  on  him 
who  might  do  better  with  the  land.  It  could 
secure  no  guarantee  that  he  would. 

In  the  matter  of  territorial  distribution  war 
cannot  do  what  civilization  needs  to  have  done; 
and  this  fact  is  quite  apart  from  the  question  of 
whether  or  not  war  deserves  general  condemna- 
tion. 


CHAPTER  II 

WHAT  SCIENCE  COULD  CONTRIBUTE 

TO  AN  ADEQUATE  CONCEPTION 

OF  CIVILIZATION 

Assuming,  then,  the  sincerity  of  the  nations 
in  their  profession  of  concern  for  civilization, 
the  problem  comes  to  be  one  of  convincing  them 
that  civilization  is  something  considerably  dif- 
ferent from  what  it  has  been  vaguely  held  to  be. 
While  science  cannot  hope  to  produce  such  con- 
viction by  its  own  unaided  efforts,  it  has  much 
to  contribute  that  should  operate  powerfully 
toward  such  a  conviction.  An  item  of  this  sort 
is  the  store  of  information  the  several  sciences 
of  man  have  accumulated  which  reveal  to  us  the 
overwhelming  diversity  and  complexity  of  hu- 
man nature,  and  of  the  human  species  taken  in 
its  entirety.  These  stores  of  knowledge  have 
been  accumulated  directly  and  indirectly  by  all 
the  sciences,  but  chiefly  by  biology,  anthro- 
pology, psychology,  and  sociology.  If  one  will 
take  the  time  to  acquaint  himself  with  some  of 

the  fruits  of  investigation  in  these  sciences,  and 
33 


34  WAR,  SCIENCE 

will  then  reflect  that  the  play  and  interplay  of 
all  these  varied  elements  in  highly  developed 
man  is  what  we  call  civilization,  he  will  find  him- 
self mightily  sobered  in  his  impulsions  to  pro- 
nounce what  civilization  is,  or  what  things  make 
for  it  and  what  ones  against  it,  and  what  peoples 
are  civilized  and  what  ones  are  barbarous. 
Hardly  anything  more  surprising,  and  to  out- 
siders, more  distressing,  has  occurred  in  connec- 
tion with  the  great  war  than  the  readiness  with 
which  men  of  the  highest  attainments  and 
character  on  both  sides  have  pronounced  the 
other  side  as  greatly  their  inferiors  in  civiliza- 
tion. 

I.    MAN'S  CAPACITY  FOR  IMPROVEMENT 

Perhaps  the  most  stirringly  prophetic  single 
statement  that  can  be  made  relative  to  the 
achievements  of  science  in  the  study  of  man,  is 
that  the  results  of  such  study  do  not  warrant  an 
attempt  to  fix  a  limit  on  man's  capacity  for 
development.  The  doctrine  of  human  perfecti- 
bility preached  by  a  group  of  French  philoso- 
phers a  century  and  a  half  ago  may  well  be  re- 
called in  this  connection,  and  the  point  made 
that  the  progress  of  science  since  then  necessi- 
tates the  fundamental  modification  of  that  doc- 
trine to  the  effect  that  not  the  perfection  of 
man  is  the  goal  of  his  evolution,  but  his  passing 
to  ever  higher  intellectual  and  moral  levels. 


AND  CIVILIZATION  35 

Friedrich  Nietzsche  and  his  followers  are  looking 
rapturously  forward  toward  a  Superman  be- 
cause they  have  never  distinguished  between  man 
becoming  gradually  and  continuously  better,  and 
some  imaginary  being  wholly  superior  to  man. 
This  summary  of  the  position  of  science  relative 
to  the  magnitude  of  the  problem  of  man  should 
be  compared  with  what  was  said  about  its  posi- 
tion relative  to  the  magnitude  of  the  problem 
of  nature  generally ;  and  the  essence  of  the  cau- 
tionary remark  made  then  holds  good  here: 
while  the  inductive  study  of  the  problem  does 
not  warrant  the  conclusion  that  man  is  infinite 
in  the  old  theological  sense,  neither  does  it 
justify  the  conclusion  that  he  is  finite  in  the  way 
our  religious  teachings  have  accustomed  us  to 
think  of  him.  Science  furnishes  tlie  groundwork 
of  a  great  rational  faith  m  man's  capacity  for 
indefinite  progress. 

Another  item  to  be  noticed  which  science  is 
able  to  contribute  toward  such  a  conviction 
about  the  nature  of  civilization,  and  toward 
testing  the  desire  for  promoting  it,  has  to  do 
with  a  definition  of  what  civilization  really  is. 
In  an  earlier  page  the  remark  was  made  that 
civilization  is  a  higher  category  in  the  science 
of  man  than  is  race  or  people,  nation  or  state; 
and  that  this  is  so  because  it  is  concerned  with 
the  integrative  forces  acting  above  and  across 
the  entities  designated  by  these  other  categories. 


36  WAR,  SCIENCE 

II.     VARIETY  AND  UNITY  IN  CIVILIZATION 

To  civilization  as  thus  characterized  we  must 
now  attend,  and  we  must  do  so  carefully  be- 
cause the  conception  runs  strongly  counter  to 
that  held  by  present  day  militarists  and  some 
statesmen  who  regard  the  state  as  the  "  be-all 
and  end-all  "  of  human  effort. 

The  phenomena  of  cooperation,  or  coordina- 
tion, or,  as  I  prefer,  integration,  are  far  more 
widespread  and  fundamental  in  living  nature, 
and  so  are  more  recognized  by  technical  biology, 
than  by  speculative  biology.  We  must  conse- 
quently look  a  little  at  the  strictly  biological 
aspects  of  the  subject.  If  I  do  this  somewhat 
more  extensively  than  might  at  first  sight  ap- 
pear necessary,  justification  is  sought  in  the 
fact  that  I  find  evidence  on  all  sides  that  while 
general  ideas  about  social  and  political  ques- 
tions have  been  greatly  influenced  by  the  theory 
of  biological  evolution,  that  influence  has  been 
almost  entirely  unaffected  by  the  integrative 
aspect  of  the  evolutionary  process.  For  ex- 
ample, I  pick  up  just  now  a  new  book  bearing 
the  title  "  A  Theory  of  Civilization,"  the  author 
of  which  has  obviously  read  widely  and  thought 
earnestly  and  rather  candidly.  In  the  conclud- 
ing chapter  I  find  this :  "  Civilization  repre- 
sents the  specific  variation  by  which  humanity, 
at  any  time,  in  any  place,  has  secured  the 


AND  CIVILIZATION  37 

superior  variant  strain  through  which  it  has 
been  evolved  into  a  position  higher  than  that 
occupied  by  those  who  did  not  secure  such  a 
variant."  While  this  statement  about  variants 
may  be  accepted  as  essentially  true,  it  would  be 
impossible  for  one  familiar  with  the  real  facts 
of  organic  evolution  to  say  that  "  civilization 
represents  "  this  truth.  According  to  our  view, 
the  variant  aspect  of  civilization  is  half,  and 
only  half,  the  story.  Beyond  a  doubt  the 
modern  development  of  individualistic  and  ego- 
istic theory  exemplified  by  writings  such  as 
those  of  Henrik  Ibsen  and  G.  Bernard  Shaw, 
and  culminating  in  the  philosophy  of  Friedrich 
Nietzsche,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  men  highly  en- 
dowed by  nature  on  the  esthetic  side  and  pro- 
foundly interested  in  some  aspects  of  human  life, 
have  erected  their  superstructures  on  a  founda- 
tion of  biological  doctrine  into  the  construction 
of  which  only  half  the  relevant  biological  facts 
have  been  used.  I  conclude,  therefore,  that  re- 
sponsibility for  the  teachings  of  these  men,  tend- 
ing as  they  surely  do  to  the  destruction  of 
human  society  and  so  of  civilization,  rests  more 
heavily  upon  science  than  it  does  upon  art  in 
whose  name  these  men  speak.  They  have  taken 
their  cue  from  modern  biology,  and  their 
broader,  more  responsive  imaginations  and 
greater  humanitarian  sensitiveness  have  revealed 
the  badness  of  the  cue  as  this  could  hardly  be 


38  WAR,  SCIENCE 

revealed  by  the  more  solid  and  stolid  work  of 
the  scientists  themselves. 

III.    BIOLOGY'S  TESTIMONY  REGARDING 
UNITY  IN  LIVING  NATURE 

The  great  prominence  given  by  Herbert 
Spencer  to  the  idea  of  movement  from  the  homo- 
geneous to  the  heterogeneous  in  evolution,  has 
made  the  many  readers  of  this  author  familiar 
with  the  diversifying  aspect  of  evolution.  This 
teaching,  taken  with  that  of  the  physiological 
division  of  labor  borrowed  by  biology  from 
political  economy,  and  the  corollary  teaching 
of  differentiation  of  structure,  has  brought  it 
about  that  to  many  persons  the  terms  develop- 
ment and  evolution  are  almost  synonymous  with 
differentiation  and  specialization.  Yet  the  in- 
adequacy of  this  conception  is  obvious  once  one 
thinks  a  moment.  The  life  history  of  any  indi- 
vidual animal,  especially  of  the  higher  kinds,  is 
conclusive  on  this  point.  Mere  multiplication 
of  cells  with  an  accompanying  transformation 
of  these  cells  into  the  individual  and  independent 
tissue  cells  of  a  horse  or  man  would  not  by  any 
means  make  a  horse  or  a  man  of  the  tissue 
masses.  Each  cell  and  group  of  cells  must  be 
placed  where  it  belongs.  All  the  brain  cells 
must  go  into  the  brain,  and  all  the  muscle  cells 
into  the  muscles.  But  this  proper  placing  of 
the  differentiated  cells  is  far  from  the  whole 


AND  CIVILIZATION  39 

story.  Their  proper  interconnection  with  one 
another,  and  their  interdependence  and  interac- 
tion upon  one  another,  has  to  be  secured.  The 
muscle  cells  have  to  be  adjusted  to  one  another, 
the  brain  cells  to  one  another,  and  the  liver  cells 
to  one  another,  and  each  group  of  cells  or  organ 
must  be  adjusted  to  every  other  group  or  organ. 
Organization,  or,  again,  as  I  prefer,  integra- 
tion, is  as  fundamental  a  principle  in  evolution 
as  is  differentiation.  The  fact  is  a  common- 
place so  far  as  concerns  the  evolution  of  the  in- 
dividual, and  is  recognized  in  all  careful  defini- 
tions of  organic  growth,  though  the  recognition 
is  rarely  adequate.  As  an  illustration  of  this 
inadequate  recognition,  reference  may  be  made 
again  to  Herbert  Spencer.  While  this  author 
recognizes  the  principle  as  fully,  perhaps,  as  any 
writer  on  the  general  theory  of  evolution,  and 
applies  the  term  integration  to  it  more  definitely 
than  any  one  else,  yet  an  attentive  study  of  his 
writings  reveals  that  he  conceives  integration  as 
more  in  the  nature  of  an  after-thought  than  as 
a  basic  principle  of  evolution ;  that  is,  it  follows 
along  behind  differentiation,  instead  of  being 
original  and  initial  with  it.  The  insufficiency 
of  Spencer's  view  is  readily  seen  by  noticing  such 
a  familiar  fact  as  that  in  the  embryonic  groAvth 
of  man,  for  example,  the  nervous  system,  which 
is  preeminently  the  integrating  system  of  the 
body,  is  not  later  in  development  than  the  parts 


40  WAR,  SCIENCE 

it  is  to  integrate.  In  fact,  the  spinal  cord  and 
the  brain  are  about  the  first  parts  of  the  body  to 
be  laid  down.  The  evolution  of  the  individual  is 
certainly  not  a  differentiation  of  the  individual 
and  then  afterwards  an  integration  of  it,  but 
rather  the  simultaneous  accomplishment  of  dif- 
ferentiation and  integration.  It  is  the  produc- 
tion of  unified  diversity,  or  diversified  unity, 
whichever  way  one  chooses  to  state  it.  In  fact, 
it  ought  to  be  stated  now  this  way,  now  that, 
depending  on  where  in  a  particular  discussion 
one  wishes  to  place  the  emphasis. 

The  integrative  side  of  evolution,  as  manifest 
in  the  growth  of  the  individual,  is  no  less  mani- 
fest in  the  functioning  of  the  individual's  parts 
after  growth  is  completed.  The  integrative 
office  of  the  nutriment-distributing  system  —  the 
sap  system  in  plants,  and  the  blood  and  lymph 
systems  in  animals  —  is  clear  enough,  as  is  also 
that  of  the  nervous  system.  Considerable  study 
has  latterly  been  devoted  to  the  nervous  system 
from  this  standpoint.  But  the  most  important 
recent  investigations  on  functional  integration 
within  the  individual  are  those  on  the  so-called 
internal  secretions.  The  parts  played  by  the 
products  of  the  thyroid  gland  and  the  supra- 
renal body  in  maintaining  the  balance  and  health 
of  the  organism,  not  only  during  growth,  but  as 
well  in  functional  activity  after  growth  is  at  an 
end,  has  become  a  matter  of  common  knowledge. 


AND  CIVILIZATION  41 

In  a  word,  the  organism  has  chemical  means  for 
keeping  itself  unified  and  in  balance.  So  im- 
portant a  place  have  these  unifying  substances 
in  the  organism's  economy  that  the  applicable 
name,  hormones,  has  been  given  to  them. 

There  is  another  point  at  which  the  principle 
of  integration  is  always  tacitly  recognized  in 
practical  biology,  yet  curiously  enough  is  very 
little  noticed  in  philosophizing  about  evolution. 
Reference  is  made  to  the  fact  that  the  place 
which  organisms  hold  in  the  evolutionary  scale 
depends  as  much  on  the  extent  to  which  the  in- 
dividuals of  the  various  groups  are  organized, 
or  integrated,  as  upon  the  extent  to  which  they 
are  differentiated.  The  animal  kingdom  is 
higher  than  the  plant  kingdom,  not  only  because 
the  individual  animal  is  more  differentiated,  but 
because  it  is  more  integrated  than  any  individual 
plant.  Similarly,  a  dog  is  higher  than  a  lobster, 
and  a  man  higher  than  a  dog,  not  merely  because 
each  is  in  turn  more  specialized  than  the  animal 
with  which  it  is  compared,  but  quite  as  much  be- 
cause it  is  more  integrated. 

But  what  really  interests  us  here  more  than 
integration  in  the  individual,  is  integration  be- 
tween or  among  individuals  to  make  associations 
and  societies.  Perhaps  the  fullest  single  state- 
ment this  phase  of  the  subject  has  yet  received 
was  at  the  hands  of  the  Russian,  Peter  Kropot- 
kin,  in  his  book,  "  Mutual  Aid  a  Factor  of  Evo- 


4£  WAR,  SCIENCE 

lution."  While  most  biologists  and  many  soci- 
ologists are  more  or  less  acquainted  with  this 
work,  it  has  attracted  the  attention  of  neither 
group  to  the  extent  that  the  general  subject 
deserves.  Kropotkin's  book  and  other  writings 
on  the  same  subject  have  not  appealed  to  stu- 
dents more  strongly  because  no  one,  not  even 
these  authors,  have  fully  grasped  the  idea  that 
organic  evolution  is  just  as  fundamentally  an 
organizing,  an  integrating,  process  as  it  is  a 
differentiating  process.  For  two  generations 
thought  about  evolution  has  been  cast  so  exclu- 
sively in  moulds  of  multiplication,  specializa- 
tion, antagonism,  and  combat  to  the  death,  that 
the  incorporative,  the  coordinative,  the  consti- 
tutive aspects  of  the  process,  have  had  little 
chance  of  recognition.  How  foreign  to  our 
modern  modes  of  thought  is  the  idea  that  two 
things  can  be  opposed  and  at  the  same  time  in- 
dispensable to  each  other !  Or  that  two  organic 
parts  or  organisms  can  compete  with  each  other 
and  both  succeed!  Yet  in  the  actual  system  of 
nature  these  theoretical  impossibilities  occur 
everywhere.  You  must  think  in  concrete  terms 
to  bring  this  matter  home  to  you  with  full  force. 
The  extensor  and  flexor  muscles  of  your  arm  are 
opposed  to  each  other  in  action,  and  compete 
with  each  other  for  sustenance ;  yet  not  only  do 
the  opposition  and  the  competition  fall  short  of 
the  "  complete  crushing  "  of  each  other,  but  the 


AND  CIVILIZATION  43 

success  of  each  is  dependent  upon  the  success  of 
the  other.  These  two  antagonistic  groups  of 
muscles  were  produced  and  exist  and  do  their 
work  because  both  are  parts  of  a  larger  whole. 
The  same  must  be  said  of  any  two  members  of 
any  organic  system  whatever.  The  prevalent 
conception  of  an  organic  system  seems  to  be  that 
it  is  one  in  which  the  parts,  though  cooperating 
after  a  fashion,  are  yet  essentially  independent 
or  even  opposed  to  one  another,  as  though  they 
had  been  driven  together  from  some  wholly  inde- 
pendent source  and  are  only  tolerant  of  one 
another  pending  a  chance  to  separate  again, 
each  to  go  its  original  way.  On  the  contrary, 
such  a  system  is  one  in  which  the  opposition  of 
the  parts  to  one  another  is  constitutive  each  for 
the  other,  because  unitedly  they  are  constitutive 
of  the  whole  system.  It  is  amazing  that  there 
should  be  need  of  calling  attention  to  such  com- 
monplace facts.  Yet  speculative  biology  and 
(trailing  along  behind  it,  one  regretfully  notes) 
speculative  sociology  almost  utterly  ignore  them. 
Thought  is  a  means  by  which  truth  may  be  dis- 
covered; but  it  may  also  be  so  employed  as 
to  make  the  most  obvious,  most  familiar  facts 
practically  invisible.  One  of  the  most  im- 
portant and  hardest  tasks  science  has  to  perform 
is  that  of  enabling  people  to  really  see  common- 
place things. 

Another  important  fact  about  biological  inte- 


44  WAR,  SCIENCE 

gration  is  the  subordination  or  complete  sur- 
render of  one  or  more  of  the  original  endowments 
by  the  elements  in  the  integrating  systems.  Two 
distinct  types  of  this  must  be  recognized. 
First,  there  are  those  cases  in  which  some  of  the 
attributes  of  the  elements  remain  wholly  unde- 
veloped. For  example,  a  low  order  of  sensitive- 
ness and  contractility  are  attributes  of  all  un- 
differentiated  protoplasm,  so  that  going  back  far 
enough  in  racial  evolution  we  may  say  that  nerve 
cells  once  had  the  ability  to  become  muscle  fibers, 
and  vice  versa.  Similar  reasoning  would  apply 
to  all  the  tissues  of  the  organism.  The  other 
case  is  that  of  the  abandonment  of  certain  well 
established  functions  in  particular  organs,  re- 
sulting sometimes  in  the  entire  loss  of  usefulness 
of  the  members  in  question,  and  sometimes  in  the 
assumption  of  wholly  different  functions.  Use- 
less parts  of  which  there  are  so  many  in  the 
human  body,  the  vermiform  appendix  being  one, 
and  parts  like  the  thyroid  gland,  the  original 
racial  office  of  which  was  very  different  from 
that  now  performed  by  it,  are  examples  of  this 
second  kind  of  abandonment. 

An  adequate  treatment  of  sacrifice  among  men 
is  impossible  without  taking  into  account  the 
purely  corporeal  phenomena  here  adverted  to. 
Nor  is  it  enough  to  say  that  the  yielding  up  of 
activities  and  prerogatives,  which  among  human 
beings  we  call  sacrifice,  is  merely  analogous  to 


AND  CIVILIZATION  45 

the  relinquishment  pointed  out  among  bodily 
parts.  It  is  not  contended  that  a  close  parity 
exists  between  the  two  groups  of  phenomena. 
But  they  have  these  fundamentals  in  common: 
both  pertain  to  the  great  process  of  organic  evo- 
lution, and  both  are  manifestations  of  the 
principle  of  organic  subordination  of  parts  to 
other  parts  and  to  the  whole. 

IV.    CIVILIZATION  AS  A  PART  OF 
EVOLUTION 

Let  us  examine  the  possibility  that  the  pro- 
motion of  civilization  may  become  an  object  so 
strong  among  the  foremost  nations  as  to  make 
them  willing  under  extraordinary  circumstances 
to  give  up  peacefully,  for  the  general  good,  cer- 
tain advantages  of  territory  or  trade  belonging 
to  them.  "  Civilization  "  is  the  one-word  desig- 
nation of  the  grade  of  evolution  for  one  organic 
species,  Homo  sapiens  in  respect  to  those  attri- 
butes which  set  it  off  most  sharply  from  all  other 
species.  It  is  evolution,  though  only  a  part  of 
it,  albeit  an  overwhelmingly  important  part. 

Before  proceeding  to  details  a  word  of  caution 
must  be  spoken,  particularly  to  non-biological 
readers.  Too  close  a  parallel  should  not  be 
drawn  between  the  parts  of  evolution  called 
civilization,  and  the  simpler,  more  concrete  parts 
known  as  physical  evolution.  In  spite  of  the 
fact  that  there  are  certain  elements  common  to 


46  WAR,  SCIENCE 

all  evolution,  as  variation  and  adaptation,  there 
is  still  a  measure  of  uniqueness  in  the  evolution 
of  every  group  of  organisms.  The  evolution  of 
birds,  for  instance,  presents  in  their  peculiar 
mode  of  locomotion  much  that  is  unique,  and  so 
must  be  studied  partly  as  a  problem  in  itself. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  evolution  of  any  other 
group.  Much  more  of  uniqueness  should  we  ex- 
pect, then,  in  the  evolution  of  man  at  the  higher 
levels  of  his  nature. 

There  seems  to  have  been  tacit  agreement  with 
scarcely  a  dissenting  voice,  that  in  the  relation 
between  nations,  commercial,  political  and  mili- 
tary interests  are  absolutely  paramount.  This 
fallacious  doctrine  has  been  generally  accepted 
because  people  so  rarely  distinguish  clearly  be- 
tween the  nation  as  a  political  unit  and  the  na- 
tion as  a  cultural,  or  civilizational  unit ;  in  other 
words,  between  the  nation  as  a  state  and  the 
nation  as  a  group  of  people  bound  together  by 
certain  cultural  customs  and  institutions.  Only 
a  few  authors  seem  to  have  made  much  of  this 
distinction.  The  German  political  economist, 
Franz  Oppenheimer,  is  one  of  them.  This  par- 
ticular exception  is  the  more  noteworthy  because 
theorizing  on  international  relations  in  the 
absence  of  such  recognition  appears  to  have 
largely  determined  modern  militarist  doctrines, 
whether  of  the  theocratic  or  the  animalistic  type ; 
and  both  these  types  have,  as  is  well  known, 


AND  CIVILIZATION  47 

found  most  of  their  strongest  champions  in 
Germany. 

Some  of  the  consequences  of  this  defective 
reasoning  as  they  come  to  light  in  militarist  ex- 
pressions, are  of  simply  incalculable  importance, 
or  would  be  were  these  doctrines  put  into  prac- 
tice. Theocratic  militarists  holding  the  State 
to  be  of  divine  origin,  logically  regard  war  as  a 
divine  institution.  "  God  will  see  to  it," 
Treitschke  is  quoted  as  saying,  "  that  war  al- 
ways recurs  as  a  drastic  medicine  for  the  human 
race."  An  attempt  to  harmonize  this  doctrine 
with  the  "  law  of  love  "  of  Christianity,  appar- 
ently adhered  to  by  this  school  of  militarism,  is 
made  by  contending  that  "  Christian  morality  is 
personal  and  social,"  and  hence  that  the  law  of 
love  "  can  claim  no  significance  for  the  relations 
of  one  country  to  another"  (von  Bernhardi). 
In  other  words,  the  law  of  love  ceases  at  inter- 
national boundary  lines. 

Analysis  of  the  "  law  of  love  "  among  men 
proves  indubitably  that  the  phenomena  thus 
designated  are  inextricably  bound  up  with  a 
whole  series  of  other  phenomena,  partly  physical 
and  partly  spiritual,  these  latter  being  coex- 
tensive if  not  identical  with  what  all  sound 
anthropology  and  sociology  recognize  as  consti- 
tuting higher  culture  or  civilization.  Now  cul- 
ture not  only  does  not  stop  at  international 
boundary  lines,  but  at  its  highest  levels  and  in 


48  WAR,  SCIENCE 

its  most  general  aspects  it  heeds  them  very  little ; 
and  its  particular  instrumentalities  and  modes 
of  expression  are  in  the  highest  degree  cosmo- 
politan. In  other  words,  reverting  to  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  political  nation  and  the 
cultural  nation,  the  conclusion  seems  un- 
escapable  that  not  only  is  the  distinction  of  very 
great  moment,  but  in  the  nature  of  the  case  will 
become  more  and  more  so  as  civilization  ad- 
vances. 

We  may  say,  then,  that  it  would  be  utterly 
impossible  for  anyone  who  should  see  this  dis- 
tinction clearly,  to  contend  that  the  "  law  of 
love  can  have  no  significance  as  between  coun- 
tries," unless  he  should  deliberately  throw  all 
logic  and  regard  for  the  facts  to  the  wind.  And 
I  would  insist  with  all  the  force  I  can  muster 
that  were  this  theory  correct,  we  would  be  com- 
pelled to  anticipate  that  not  only  wul  wars  not 
become  less  frequent  and  less  destructive  as  time 
goes  on,  but  they  will  increase  in  number 
and  violence  until  civilization  will  become  so 
exhausted  that  the  resources  of  science  and  in- 
dustry during  the  intervals  of  peace  can  no 
longer  provide  the  means  for  making  the  war 
machine  more  effective.  The  query  may  well  be 
made,  do  not  recent  world-politics,  so-called,  and 
world-warfare  in  the  present  situation  confirm 
this  forecast?  It  is  doubtful  if  the  militarists 


AND  CIVILIZATION  49 

themselves  have  seen  this,  or  would  be  quite  will- 
ing to  maintain  the  desirability  of  such  an  out- 
come. 


CHAPTER  III 

CIVILIZATION  LOOKED  AT  STILL  MORE 
CLOSELY 

The  next  step  in  our  undertaking  must  be  to 
assemble,  as  a  preliminary  to  their  further  treat- 
ment, a  number  of  the  results  scattered  through 
the  discussion  so  far.  These  are :  recognition  of 
the  civilizing  processes  as  the  evolution  of  man 
in  his  higher  attributes ;  the  conception  that  in- 
tegration and  differentiation  in  evolution  are  co- 
ordinate ;  the  perception  by  science  of  the  pro- 
digious diversity  and  complexity  of  mankind, 
both  as  to  species  and  as  to  individuals,  with  the 
collateral  perception  of  his  capacity  for  de- 
velopment ;  and  the  inexhaustibility  of  the  earth 
as  the  home  and  nourisher  of  civilized  man  as 
contrasted  with  barbarous  man.  If  we  view 
certain  facts  and  tendencies  that  have  recently 
manifested  themselves  in  the  relations  among 
civilized  countries  in  the  light  of  these  principles, 
I  believe  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  some  such 
solution  of  the  territorial  problem  as  is  here  sug- 
gested will  be  found  somewhat  less  formidable 

than  they  seemed  to  be  at  first  sight. 
50 


WAR,  SCIENCE  51 

I.     CIVILIZING  PROCESSES  AND  MAN'S 
HIGHER  ATTRIBUTES 

Taking  these  matters  up  seriatim,  the  pro- 
posal to  regard  civilization  as  a  part  of  evolu- 
tion comes  in  for  examination  first.  One  of  the 
great  advantages  in  this  would  be  an  escape  from 
the  deadening  notion  of  fixity  that  so  dominates 
thinking  about  civilization.  When  one  reflects 
on  the  extent  to  which  action  is  guided  by  prece- 
dent, he  comes  to  see  the  enormous  importance 
of  this.  It  appears  justifiable  to  assume  that 
the  through-and-through  evolutionist  is  exactly 
the  one  in  whom  the  "  historic  sense  "  is  pre- 
eminently keen  and  sane,  and  so  the  one  to  whom 
the  dictum,  "  history  repeats  itself,"  should 
have  its  deepest  meaning.  But  alongside  this 
much-used  dictum  the  biological  evolutionist, 
because  of  the  vastly  more  extended  segment  of 
progress  with  which  he  is  familiar,  places  the 
equally  important  dictum,  "  evolution  never  re- 
peats itself."  While  the  main  purpose  of  this 
essay  prompts  us  to  keep  the  integrative  side  of 
evolution  in  the  foreground,  just  here  we  have  to 
emphasize  the  differentiative  side.  The  state- 
ment, "  evolution  never  repeats  itself,"  is  only 
another  way  of  saying  that  there  is  no  evolution 
without  differentiation  and  modification.  The 
only  evolution  to  which  those  species  that  have 
existed  for  some  millions  of  years  have  been  sub- 
ject since  their  origin,  has  been  in  the  individuals 


53  WAR,  SCIENCE 

that  have  succeeded  one  another  for  countless 
generations.  It  is  worth  while  to  note  that  all 
the  oldest  species  are  relatively  low  species,  the 
higher  ones  being  just  those  that  transform  most 
rapidly.  To  the  evolutional  type  of  thinker 
there  is  no  exact  repetition  of  any  event  or 
set  of  conditions,  especially  m  human  history, 
so  he  will  always  appeal  to  precedent  with  some 
grain  of  qualification ;  and  if  he  is  dealing  with  a 
particular  evolutional  series  concerning  which 
there  are  grounds  for  believing  the  process  is 
still  going  on,  as  is  the  case  with  civilization,  he 
will  refuse  to  be  influenced  by  precedent  more 
than  in  a  rather  general  way.  The  anticipa- 
tory, the  projective  character  of  evolutionary 
ethics,  already  referred  to,  is  undoubtedly  one 
of  the  most  distinctive,  most  inspiring  things 
about  it.  To  bring  this  reasoning  home,  no 
really  scientific  evolutionist  would  think  for  a 
moment  of  justifying,  without  the  most  careful 
qualifications,  the  breaking  of  a  contract  by  an 
individual,  or  a  treaty  by  a  nation,  on  the 
ground  of  historical  precedent. 

Again,  protagonists  of  Imperialism,  and  of 
war  as  the  instrument  for  attaining  it,  speak  of 
the  "  right  of  conquest "  as  something  sacred 
and  inviolable  because  "  in  the  past  it  has  always 
been  recognized."  Such  arguing  is  intolerable 
to  a  consistent  evolutionist.  In  the  use  made 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  by  political  leaders, 


AND  CIVILIZATION  53 

diplomatists,  and  militarists,  the  utmost  contra- 
dictoriness  and  confusion  prevail.  On  the  one 
hand  they  borrow  from  biology  and  use  with  the 
greatest  assurance  such  vague  phrases  as 
"  struggle  for  existence  "  and  "  survival  of  the 
fittest,"  while  on  the  other  hand  they  seem  quite 
oblivious  to  the  essential  idea  of  forward  move- 
ment and  growing  interdependence  among  men, 
the  very  essence  of  progress  in  civilization. 

Insufficient  attention  to  the  time  element  in 
progress  seems  partly  responsible  for  the  un- 
fortunate inconsistency.  So  the  need  of  giving 
more  heed  to  this  element  is  another  reason  for 
treating  civilization  as  a  part  of  evolution. 
The  assertion  heard  over  and  over  again  that 
man  is  no  longer  progressing  racially,  appears 
to  be  based  always  on  the  little  segment  of  his 
history  since  he  became  able  to  write.  In  spite 
of  all  that  anthropology  and  palaeontology  have 
done  to  increase  the  length  of  the  known  period 
of  man's  career,  dominant  ethical  theory  seems 
to  be  essentially  what  it  was  when  human  history 
was  supposed  to  have  begun  with  Adam  and 
Eve,  or  Romulus  and  Remus,  or  other  full- 
fledged  mythical  personages.  The  considerable 
body  of  reliable  knowledge  about  European  cul- 
ture 20,000  years  ago  when  Cro-magnon  man 
was  producing  the  mural  paintings  in  the  caves 
of  Western  Europe,  appears  to  have  had  little  or 
no  effect  on  European  culture  of  today,  or  at 


54  WAR,  SCIENCE 

least  on  its  politics.  Just  at  present  the  doc- 
trine being  put  into  practice  seems  to  be  that 
for  several  centuries  civilization  has  not  ad- 
vanced; that  because  it  has  not,  there  is  no 
ground  for  supposing  it  ever  will ;  and  that  this 
being  so,  the  best  thing  for  man  to  do  is  to 
abandon  all  elements  in  culture  excepting  those 
that  increase  his  efficiency  as  an  animal,  and 
"  play  the  game  "  on  this  basis  as  long  as  there 
is  enough  substance  and  strength  to  keep  it 
going. 

Another  advantage  to  be  derived  from  think- 
ing of  civilization  in  terms  of  evolution  is  that 
attention  would  be  focused  on  the  fact  that  evo- 
lution not  being  of  necessity  progressive,  but 
may  be  regressive,  civilization  is  also  subject  to 
backward  movement.  This  should  be  specially 
useful  when  people  become  conscious  of  personal 
responsibility  for  the  direction  a  particular 
aspect  of  civilization  takes. 

The  present  promulgation  of  eugenic  teach- 
ing is  undoubtedly  fostering  a  public  conscious- 
ness of  this  sort,  at  least  so  far  as  purely  physi- 
cal evolution  is  concerned.  But  remembering 
that  on  earlier  pages  we  have  emphasized  the 
fact  that  the  particularly  unique  thing  about  the 
human  animal  is  his  humanness, —  that  is,  his 
intellectuality,  morality,  and  the  rest, —  we  shall 
not  fail  to  note  that  public  consciousness  of 
responsibility  for  evolution  on  these  higher 


AND  CIVILIZATION  55 

planes  is  most  important.  Assuredly  it  is  well 
for  man  to  attend  to  his  evolution  as  an  animal ; 
but  vastly  more  important  is  it  for  him  to  at- 
tend to  his  evolution  as  a  human  animal. 

Third,  and  finally,  an  advantage  of  changing 
the  terminology  of  civilization  into  that  of  evo- 
lution is  that  the  distinction  between  differen- 
tiations and  specializations  which  are  integra- 
tive,  and  those  which  are  not,  but  are  disintegra- 
tive,  would  become  clearer.  But  the  discussion 
of  this  falls  more  properly  under  the  next  head. 

II.     STILL  MORE  ABOUT  THE  COORDINATE- 
NESS  OF  VARIETY  AND  UNITY 

The  second  item  in  the  inventory,  it  will  be 
recalled,  is  the  conception  that  evolution  is  as 
fundamentally  integrative  as  it  is  differentiative. 
According  to  our  way  of  viewing  evolution,  and 
civilization  as  a  part  of  it,  the  question  of 
whether  or  not  man  has  progressed  since  the 
Old  Stone  Age  or  the  New  Stone  Age,  or  the 
Homeric  Age,  or  the  Arthurian  Age,  or  any 
other  age,  is  not  to  be  answered  by  examining 
crania  alone,  or  cave  art,  or  Arthurian  or  Aztec 
art  alone,  or  Greek  literature  and  philosophy 
alone,  or  Roman  law  alone,  or  the  theology  of 
Egypt  or  of  the  Reformation  alone,  but  by  tak- 
ing all  the  facts  available  from  all  these  and  all 
other  sources,  and  considering  their  bearing  on 
the  question  of  extent  of  differentiation  and  in- 


56  WAR,  SCIENCE 

tegration.  I  may  call  attention  again  to  the 
possible  serviceableness  of  the  methods  and  out- 
look of  science  to  the  study  of  civilized  man. 
Biologists  who  occupy  themselves  with  the 
description  and  classification  of  organic  beings 
are  much  guided  by  an  aphorism  which  would 
unquestionably  be  useful  to  those  who  deal  with 
great  problems  of  human  life.  It  is  "  neglect 
nothing  "  that  will  help  in  deciding  where  a  par- 
ticular individual  or  species  should  be  placed  in 
the  system  of  classification.  It  should  be  ex- 
plained that  this  aphorism  does  not  mean  "  know 
everything."  It,  of  course,  presupposes  a  good 
deal  of  knowledge,  and  the  more  the  better ;  but 
the  main  factor  in  this  meaning  is  "  do  not  fail 
to  take  account  of  all  you  know  about  your 
specimen  in  your  final  conclusion."  It  is  quite 
as  much  an  appeal  for  balanced  judgment  as 
for  extensive  knowledge.  Starting  from  the 
conception  of  evolution  and  civilization  advo- 
cated by  us,  and  going  along  under  the  steady- 
ing influence  of  this  aphorism,  I  believe  the 
strongest  kind  of  a  case  could  be  made  for  the 
proposition  that  the  human  race  stands  today  at 
a  distinctly  higher  evolution  level  than  it  has 
ever  before  reached.  On  the  cultural  side  the 
human  animal  is  more  differentiated  and  more 
integrated  in  this  era  than  ever  before;  and  for 
us  that  is  the  criterion  of  evolution  and  of  prog- 
ress in  civilization.  Several  of  the  social  and 


AND  CIVILIZATION  57 

political  theories  taught  by  Plato  and  Aristotle 
and  by  the  authors  of  the  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
tures, cannot  be  explained  on  any  other  theory 
than  that  they  represent  a  stage  of  human  evo- 
lution on  the  whole  distinctly  lower  than  that 
at  which  the  modern  civilized  world  stands. 

The  question  of  the  heritability  or  non-herit- 
ability  of  cultural  attributes  in  the  narrow 
parent-offspring  sense  is  secondary,  even  though 
of  great  importance.  We  biologists,  in  this 
period  of  intense  research  on  heredity,  are  prone 
to  forget  that  heredity  is  historically  a  social 
and  economic  conception,  rather  than  a  biologi- 
cal one.  The  idea  of  social,  and  as  one  might 
say,  national,  heredity  has  been  dwelt  upon  by 
several  authors,  but  its  importance  has  been 
overshadowed  by  discussions  on  individual 
heredity. 

III.     VARIETY-PRODUCING  AND  UNITY- 
PRODUCING  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

(a)  Science 

The  main  task  under  this  second  head  is  to 
consider  some  of  the  most  potent  integrative, 
and  likewise  most  differentiative,  forces  among 
the  nations  that  become  operative  through  man's 
higher  attributes.  There  seems  no  chance  to 
doubt  that  physical  science  is  the  most  positive 
and  wide-reaching  of  all  the  integrative  forces 
on  account  of  the  absolute  universality  and 


58  WAR,  SCIENCE 

trustworthiness,  so  far  as  practice  is  concerned, 
of  many  of  the  most  useful  discoveries  and  in- 
ventions. No  matter  how  strange  men  may  be 
to  one  another,  how  diverse  or  antagonistic  their 
customs,  tastes,  and  interests,  such  things  as  the 
telegraph,  the  steam  engine,  the  dynamo,  anti- 
toxine,  and  the  prediction  of  eclipses,  are  exactly 
the  same  to  all.  All  who  reap  the  practical 
benefits  of  these,  made  possible  by  science,  must 
similarly  conform  to  their  underlying  principles, 
regardless  of  national  idiosyncrasies.  The 
power  these  things  have  for  unifying  the  human 
species  could  be  made  to  contribute  incalculably 
more  to  the  good  of  mankind  than  hitherto. 
Who  can  doubt,  to  illustrate,  that  a  strong  and 
spacious  bridge  across  the  chasm  separating 
Occidentals  from  Orientals  could  be  founded  on 
these  natural  principles?  It  is  exceedingly  de- 
plorable that  notwithstanding  the  eagerness  with 
which  Orientals  are  adopting  these  instruments 
of  civilization,  the  assertion  is  still  heard  on  all 
sides  among  Westerners  that  the  psychology  of 
the  Easterner  is  "  absolutely  different "  from 
that  of  the  Westerner;  that  the  peoples  of  the 
two  parts  of  the  world  have  "  nothing  whatever 
in  common."  Nobody  familiar  with  the  methods 
and  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  biological  descrip- 
tion and  classification  would  ever  make  state- 
ments of  this  sort,  being  deterred  on  purely 
natural  history  grounds,  and  not  necessarily  to 


AND  CIVILIZATION  59 

avoid  ethical  and  international  sinning.  It  may 
be  confidently  predicted  that  an  international 
agreement  by  which  no  citizen  of  any  country 
should  be  granted  a  passport  for  visiting  any 
other  country,  whether  for  business  or  pleasure, 
without  furnishing  proof  of  being  familiar  with 
the  main  evidence  on  which  the  anthropological 
doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the  human  species  rests, 
would  make  strongly  for  international  peace  and 
good  will. 

The  natural  community  of  interest  among  in- 
vestigators in  pure  science,  particularly  among 
the  investigators  in  the  sciences  upon  which 
medicine  immediately  rests,  is  another  aspect  of 
science  which  operates  powerfully  as  an  interna- 
tionally integrating  agent. 

The  extent  to  which  governmental  action 
might  make  use  of,  and  in  turn  promote  national 
science  to  the  end  of  furthering  world  civiliza- 
tion, is  great  beyond  calculation.  And  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  such  influence  would  be 
almost  wholly,  even  though  undesignedly, 
against  war.  When  one  considers  the  close  and 
vital  interdependence  which  the  physical  science 
of  each  country  has  with  that  of  every  other 
country  through  its  problems  and  methods  of 
work,  its  instrumental  equipment,  its  published 
researches,  and  the  associations  among  its  scien- 
tific citizens,  he  sees  that  science  acts  as  an  inte- 
grating agent  among  the  nations  in  some  such 


60  WAR,  SCIENCE 

way  as  the  nervous  system  and  the  internal  se- 
cretions integrate  the  parts  of  the  animal  body. 

(b)  Trade,  Finance,  and  the  Labor  Movement 

Another  international  unifying  agent,  hardly 
less  widely  operating  than  science,  is  trade  and 
finance.  Nor  can  there  be  any  question  of  the 
power  of  these  agents  when  the  transactions  are 
conducted  by  men  educated  in  the  languages  and 
customs  and  conditions  of  the  peoples  with  whom 
they  deal,  and  to  these  qualifications  are  added 
those  of  sympathy  and  high  moral  character 
and  ideals.  But  at  best  business  is  a  somewhat 
less  potent  unifier  than  science  because  of  the 
character  of  the  competition  that  is  inevitable 
to  trade.  This  brings  in  an  alienating  or  dis- 
ruptive factor  which  too  frequently  goes  far 
toward  offsetting  its  integrating  force. 

From  the  scientific  standpoint,  to  be  placed 
close  along  side  trade  and  finance  as  a  factor  in 
international  civilization,  is  the  modern  labor 
movement,  working  here  intensely  toward  inte- 
gration, and  there  as  intensely  toward  disinte- 
gration, and  yonder  toward  differentiation.  No 
one  in  this  day  tries  to  minimize  the  importance 
of  this  phenomenon.  Even  a  dabbler  in  prob- 
lems of  modern  social  evolution  must  take  note 
of  the  "  Communist  Manifesto  "  of  Karl  Marx 
and  his  associates. 


AND  CIVILIZATION  61 

(c)  Religion 

But  while  physical  science,  international  trade 
and  finance,  and  the  labor  movement,  are  prob- 
ably the  most  generally  and  the  most  positively 
operative  factors  toward  international  unifica- 
tion, they  are  not  the  most  powerful  for  particu- 
lar cases.  Supremacy  in  this  regard  belongs 
almost  certainly  to  religion.  No  other  agency 
has  ever  bound  together  so  many  millions  of 
people  of  such  varied  race  and  language  and 
political  affiliation  as  has  the  Catholic  Church. 
This  can  hardly  be  questioned  even  after  due  al- 
lowance is  made  for  wrecking  schisms  which  have 
from  time  to  time  arisen  in  this  mighty  creation, 
and  the  partial  failures,  not  a  few,  of  the  unify- 
ing forces  to  operate  across  certain  racial  and 
political  boundaries. 

And  alongside  the  Catholic  Church,  one  of  the 
oldest  existing  religious  organizations,  may  be 
placed  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
one  of  the  newest,  as  another  example  of  the 
internationally  unifying  force  of  religion. 

But  while  religion  is  in  some  cases  one  of  the 
mightiest  of  integrating  forces,  it  must  be  recog- 
nized as  in  other  cases  a  mighty  disintegrative 
force,  and  in  still  others  a  genuinely  differen- 
tiating force.  No  other  occurrence  in  the  whole 
history  of  Western  civilization  has  penetrated 
so  deeply  into  that  civilization  as  did  the 


62  WAR,  SCIENCE 

reformation  particularly  identified  with  Martin 
Luther.  And  this  was  not  disruptive  merely. 
The  theological  doctrines  and  churchly  forms 
that  distinguish  Protestantism  from  Catholicism, 
and  the  innumerable  sub-doctrines  and  lesser 
deviations  of  form  that  have  arisen  in  Protes- 
tantism, are  differentiative  in  the  truest  sense. 
And  what  an  example  of  "  diversified  unity  or 
unified  diversity "  modern  Protestantism  fur- 
nishes us ! 

In  the  social  service  and  foreign  missionary 
aspects  of  religion  there  are  unquestionably 
enormous  latent  forces  for  the  integration  of 
nations  and  peoples  which  judicious  political 
action  could  utilize  without  running  seriously 
athwart  the  blind  dogmas  and  withering  preju- 
dices and  superstitions  so  prevalent  in  all  insti- 
tutionalized religions. 

(d)  Race 

The  question  of  race  from  the  standpoint  of 
differentiation  and  integration  may  now  be 
touched  upon.  As  our  discussion  is  throughout 
aimed  primarily  at  the  evolution  of  man  on  the 
higher  side  of  his  nature  —  on  the  evolution  of 
the  fwman  animal  —  it  would  be  out  of  place  to 
go  far  into  this  question.  The  phase  which 
must  receive  some  consideration  is  that  of  so- 
called  race  psychology,  and  more  specifically,  the 
question  of  race  prejudice.  "  Birds  of  a  feather 


AND  CIVILIZATION  63 

flock  together."  There  is  no  doubt  about  it; 
and  it  is  surely  as  true  for  humans  as  for  avians. 
Nor  is  there  any  doubt  about  the  implied  obverse. 
Birds  of  different  feather  flock  apart,  against 
each  other  if  circumstances  give  them  occasion 
to  do  so.  No  biological  fact  is  more  certain  so 
far  as  general  principles  are  concerned.  The 
question  is  what,  exactly,  is  the  meaning  of  this 
flocking  together  and  apart  and  against?  The 
practical  question  is,  how  much  of  what  passes 
under  the  name  of  race  prejudice  is  in  reality 
prejudice  and  nothing  deeper,  and  how  much 
genuine  physiological-psychological  fact?  Un- 
fortunately, neither  biology  nor  psychology  nor 
physiology  have  gone  far  toward  answering  the 
question.  Yet  no  other  interest  calls  for  an 
answer  so  loudly  as  do  political  interests,  and 
particularly  international  political  interests. 

This  being  so,  and  it  being  highly  probable 
that  systematic  and  persistent  study  by  the  com- 
petent sciences  would  gain  much  light  on  the 
vexed  question,  it  follows  that  such  study  ought 
not  to  be  neglected  any  longer.  One  need  not 
suppose  that  to  secure  such  studies  direct  politi- 
co-international action  is  necessary.  Should 
the  political  leaders  in  the  foremost  nations  be- 
come alive  to  the  importance  of  such  knowledge 
and  to  the  possibility  of  getting  it,  those  of  each 
nation  acting  chiefly  within  its  own  precincts, 
and  appealing  to  its  own  scientists  in  these 


64.  WAR,  SCIENCE 

fields,  would  undoubtedly  soon  have  investiga- 
tions under  way. 

(e)  Language 

The  only  other  item  that  will  be  touched  upon 
under  this  second  head  is  language.  This  is 
taken  up  last  because,  being  a  sort  of  matrix  in 
which  all  the  others  are  imbedded,  it  is  in  a  sense 
the  most  important  of  all.  The  marvelous  facil- 
ity with  which  language,  particularly  while  yet 
spoken  language  exclusively,  differentiates  into 
varieties,  subspecies,  and  species  (using  the 
naturalist's  terminology),  and  the  great  com- 
plexity these  sub-divisions  may  acquire,  are  mat- 
ters of  common  knowledge.  And  equally  well 
recognized  is  the  mighty  unifying  force  there  is 
in  a  common  language.  So  well  are  these  things 
known,  and  so  large  a  part  do  they  play  in  many 
industrial,  educational,  political,  and  religious 
undertakings,  that  they  need  be  no  more  than 
mentioned.  Any  comment  on  the  subject  would 
be  only  another  way  of  saying  that  language  is 
enormously  powerful  both  as  a  differentiating 
and  as  an  integrating  force. 

The  special  point  to  be  brought  out  may  take 
the  interrogative  form.  Has  not  the  world's 
experience  gone  far  enough  to  justify  the  dictum 
that,  given  two  peoples  with  distinct  languages, 
and  enough  advanced  in  civilization  to  have  pro- 
duced a  considerable  written  history,  formulated 


AND  CIVILIZATION  65 

laws  and  an  extensive  literature,  an  attempt  to 
unite  them  into  a  political  nation,  unless  one  or 
the  other  can  be  persuaded  (not  compelled)  to 
give  up  its  own  language  and  adopt  that  of  the 
other,  has  almost  no  chance  of  success  and  ought 
not  to  be  made  ?  If  such  a  formulation  is  called 
for  by  the  facts,  and  if  the  foremost  nations  are 
indeed  greatly  concerned  about  civilization,  it 
would  seem  inevitable  that  "  world  politics " 
should  be  greatly  influenced  thereby. 


CHAPTER  IV 

DIVERSITY  AND  COMPLEXITY  OF  MAN, 
ACTUAL  AND  LATENT 

I.    POLYNATIONALISM  AND  HUMAN 
CULTURE 

The  third  item  to  be  considered  is  the  "  diver- 
sity and  complexity  of  man,  both  as  to  species 
and  as  to  each  individual."  A  German  states- 
man and  professor  of  history,  Hans  Delbriick 
(Atlantic  Monthly,  February,  1915,  page  242) 
said  since  the  war  began,  "  All  modern  culture 
in  all  its  wealth  rests  on  polynationalism."  By 
what  reasoning  the  author  would  establish  this 
proposition  I  do  not  know,  as  I  am  unfortu- 
nately not  acquainted  with  any  of  his  writings 
except  the  short  but  telling  article  in  which  this 
statement  occurs.  From  what  comes  immedi- 
ately after,  however,  I  am  led  to  infer  that  his 
argument  would  be  different  from  mine,  though 
to  the  statement  itself  I  would  give  unqualified 
assent.  He  continues,  "  If  Germany  and  Aus- 
tria are  victorious  in  this  war,  the  freedom  of 
the  nations  will  be  preserved,  because,  no  matter 
how  strong  Germany  emerges  from  the  struggle, 
she  will  still  be  far  too  weak  to  maintain  a  world- 
66 


WAR,  SCIENCE  67 

dominion.  Germany  lacks  the  mass,  the  bulk, 
the  weight,  and  must  rely  for  power  on  greater 
tension,  activity,  and  effort." 

Should  one  infer  from  this  that  had  Germany 
the  power  after  the  war  she  would  dominate  the 
world?  Is  it  implied  that  the  freedom  of  the 
nations  will  be  preserved  only  because  Germany 
will  be  too  weak  to  dominate?  Nothing  in  the 
article  requires  that  one  assume  an  affirmative 
answer  to  these  questions,  and  I  do  not  choose 
so  to  assume.  My  purpose  in  referring  to  these 
statements  is  that  they  furnish  a  convenient 
starting  point  for  the  reasoning  I  wish  to  pre- 
sent. 

See  how  readily  the  statement  transforms  into 
the  terminology  with  which  the  reader  has  now 
become  familiar.  All  modern  civilization, — 
that  is,  human  evolution, —  rests  on  integration 
among  many  nations.  While  the  two  statements 
may  mean  the  same  thing,  they  do  not  necessa- 
rily. In  Delbriick's  formulation,  culture  may  be 
used  with  the  implied  distinction  so  current  in 
Germany  between  culture  and  Kultur;  between 
culture  as  a  certain  breadth  and  depth  of  intel- 
lectual, esthetic,  and  religious  development,  and 
of  sympathy  among  individuals,  and  the  observ- 
ance of  social  amenities  ;  and  that  diversified  and 
unified  strength  of  political,  military,  and  indus- 
trial life,  which  belongs  to  the  nation  primarily, 
and  which  constitutes  Kultur. 


68  WAR,  SCIENCE 

The  thesis  I  present  is  that  culture  as  applied 
to  modern  man  should  be  understood  to  be  the 
same  thing  as  civilization,  and  that  it  is  poly- 
national,  not  by  chance  or  tolerance,  but  by  the 
very  nature  of  men  and  things.  The  polyna- 
tionalism  upon  which,  according  to  this  thesis, 
civilization  rests,  is  not  one  of  temporary  adjust- 
ment pending  the  time  when  some  one  or  a  few 
nations  shall  have  gained  sufficient  mass  and 
power  to  enable  them  to  absorb  or  dominate  all 
other  nations.  Rather  is  it  of  the  reciprocal, 
the  mutually  constitutive  type  which  we  find 
exemplified  everywhere  in  the  biologic  world. 
Poll/nationalism  becomes,  then,  structural  in- 
ternationalism. This  view  puts  us  in  a  position 
to  understand  how  it  is  that  the  term  culture  has 
been  found  in  these  later  times  a  useful  synonym 
for  civilization.  It  is  because  the  word,  going 
back  to  the  Latin  word  colere,  to  till,  to  fertilize 
the  soil,  and  sow  the  seed,  and  reap  the  crops, 
expresses  so  well  what  people  do  for  themselves 
and  for  one  another  in  developing  themselves, 
without  reference  to  who  they  are  or  where  they 
live.  The  term  civilization  seems  to  have  proved 
insufficient  to  express  all  that  students  have 
wanted  to  express  with  it,  in  that  it  refers  pri- 
marily to  what  people  are  because  of  where  and 
how  they  live.  The  civilized  man  is  the  citizen, 
and  the  citizen  is,  first  and  foremost,  the  dweller 
in  a  city.  Only  secondarily  is  the  conception  of 


AND  CIVILIZATION  69 

civilization  expansive  enough  to  include  even  so 
much  as  the  nation.  Originally,  it  stopped  with 
the  much  smaller,  simpler  group,  the  cimtas,  the 
village,  the  town.  But  that  is  not  all.  As  a 
historical  fact,  it  seems  to  have  been  a  family 
matter  at  the  outset.  In  his  "  Principles  of 
Western  Civilization,"  Benjamin  Kidd  gives  an 
illuminating  discussion  of  this  subject.  His 
studies,  he  tells  us,  furnish  direct  evidence  that 
"  the  fundamental  conception  which  throughout 
the  whole  period  of  Greek  and  Roman  history 
underlies  the  bond  of  citizenship,  rests  back  on 
the  bond  of  the  institution  of  Ancestor  Worship, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  on  an  immense  period  of 
military  development  in  the  still  earlier  past,  on 
the  other"  (page  172).  Obviously  the  term 
culture  is  much  broader  of  outlook  and  more  in- 
spiring than  is  that  of  civilization.  Highly 
significant  is  the  fact  that  culture  as  thus  used 
is  said  to  be  largely  a  thing  of  the  nineteenth 
and  twentieth  centuries. 

II.     HUMAN  CULTURE  COMPARED  TO 
AGRICULTURE 

How  is  all  this  relevant  to  the  topic  in  hand, 
"  the  diversity  and  complexity  of  man,  both  as 
to  the  species  and  as  to  each  individual"? 
Probably  no  reader  fails  to  see  the  relevancy  in 
a  general  way.  But  only  those  who  possess  con- 
siderable biological  information  and  occupy  the 


70  WAR,  SCIENCE 

viewpoint  of  this  essay  will  be  likely  to  see  it  in 
detail.  Let  us  go  back  to  the  agricultural  basis 
of  the  word  culture.  What  is  implied  in  the 
much  used  phrases,  "  scientific  agriculture  "  and 
"  intensive  agriculture  "  ?  Whatever  else  may 
be  implied,  this  much  is  certain:  an,  agriculture 
from  which  the  largest  returns  possible  shall 
be  secured.  And  this  means  two  things  at 
the  very  least:  that  the  most  shall  be  made  of 
the  particular  crop  under  cultivation ;  and  that 
the  best  possible  shall  be  done  with  the  soil  and 
other  environmental  elements  that  surround  and 
condition  the  crop. 

The  question  with  which  we  are  concerned  is, 
how  is  the  most  possible  to  be  secured  from  the 
crop  which  is  the  animal  species  Homo  sapiens? 
Let  us  not  neglect  the  point  that  the  whole 
species,  not  merely  some  one  sub-species  or  va- 
riety or  geographical  race,  is  the  material,  as  are 
also  all  the  desirable  attributes  of  the  indi- 
viduals. See,  now,  where  the  analogy  of  this 
human  culture  with  agriculture  leads  us  if  con- 
sistently followed.  Take  wheat  as  the  basis  of 
the  comparison.  From  the  standpoint  of  scien- 
tific agriculture  what  is  the  effort  for  this  crop  ? 
In  each  locality  where  the  cereal  is  grown  it  is 
to  find  varieties  suited  to  the  climate  and  soil 
of  that  special  region,  then  to  improve  as  much 
as  possible  attributes  of  those  varieties  which 
experience  shows  are  essential  to  getting  the  most 


AND  CIVILIZATION  71 

from  the  crop.  This  makes  the  problem  of 
wheat  culture  in  a  sense  a  local  problem.  In 
California,  for  example,  the  great  problem  is  to 
increase  the  proteid  content,  while  resistance  to 
rust  is  of  secondary  moment.  In  Minnesota,  on 
the  other  hand,  these  two  desiderata  are  reversed 
in  importance.  But  in  both  localities  improve- 
ment of  varieties  as  to  yielding  capacity  is 
sought.  The  same  reasoning  holds  for  any  crop 
whatever,  plant  or  animal.  A  matter  deserving 
the  utmost  consideration,  not  only  for  wheat 
culture  itself,  but  as  a  type  of  culture  with  which 
to  compare  human  culture,  is  the  almost  limitless 
capacity  that  wheat  has  for  modification  and 
adaptation,  once  it  is  taken  in  hand  by  intelli- 
gent and  skilled  cultivators.  This  leads  to  the 
heart  of  our  comparison  —  the  cultivation  of 
man  in  the  light  of  his  capacity  for  modification 
and  adaptation.  And  we  must  not  for  a  moment 
lose  sight  of  the  twofold  aspect  of  his  capacity : 
the  aspect  revealed  by  considering  the  species  as 
a  whole  and  its  distribution  over  the  earth  with 
all  the  varied  environmental  conditions  therein 
implied ;  and  that  revealed  in  each  individual. 

If  feelings  of  hostility  are  arising  in  any  read- 
er's mind  on  the  ground  that  the  proposal  to 
take  such  an  agricultural  view  of  human  culture 
is  running  eugenics  into  the  ground  even  more 
deeply  than  the  maddest  eugenists  themselves 
have  run  it,  I  would  remind  him  of  the  recurrent 


72  WAR,  SCIENCE 

emphasis  placed  on  the  fact  that  the  unique,  and 
hence  chief,  thing  about  man's  evolution  is  his 
intellectual,  esthetic,  moral,  and  religious  evolu- 
tion ;  and  that  this  necessarily  implies  that  the 
culture  must  be  first  and  foremost  self  culture. 
It  must  be  self-conscious  and  self-responsible. 
So  far  as  the  modern  movement  for  race  im- 
provement rests  on  the  doctrines  of  heredity, 
which  are  based  in  turn  on  Weismann's  germ- 
plasm  hypothesis,  it  is  seriously  defective  in  that 
heredity  as  thus  conceived  is  essentially  fatal- 
istic ;  that  is,  it  relieves  individuals  from  a  keen 
and  broad  sense  of  personal  responsibility.  But 
this  is  no  place  to  go  into  the  subject. 

III.    THE  ABUSED  HYPOTHESES  OF  NATURAL 
ECONOMY  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION 

It  is  desirable  to  return  to  the  biological  field 
in  order  to  correct  two  other  unfortunate  appli- 
cations of  biological  doctrine  in  human  affairs. 
These  are  the  so-called  economy  of  nature,  and 
natural  selection.  As  applied  to  living  beings, 
the  first  mentioned  doctrine  is  based  on  such 
physiological  facts  as  the  inability  of  the  animal 
organism  to  use  more  than  a  fixed  amount  of 
oxygen  in  respiration  even  though  considerably 
greater  quantities  be  always  available;  and,  on 
the  developmental  side,  the  inability  of  almost  all 
individual  animals  to  grow  beyond  a  certain  fixed 
maximum  size,  and  the  general  tendency  in  the 


AND  CIVILIZATION  73 

evolution  of  the  animal  kingdom  to  reduce  the 
number  of  repetitive  parts  pari  passu  with  the 
increasing  efficiency  of  a  few  of  these  parts,  as 
illustrated  by  the  small  number  of  locomotor 
members  in  vertebrates  as  contrasted  with 
arthropods.  There  are  many  such  facts,  so  no 
one  can  question  their  importance.  But  there  is 
another  body  of  facts  no  less  numerous,  so  no 
less  important,  that  are  the  very  opposite  of 
these  in  tendency,  and  so  preclude  the  possibility 
of  laying  it  down  as  a  general  law  that  nature  is 
niggardly. 

This  opposite  tendency  is  exhibited  more 
strikingly  than  elsewhere,  perhaps,  in  propaga- 
tion both  individual  and  racial.  By  what  sort 
of  psychological  sleight-of-hand  can  anyone 
make  such  phenomena  as  the  rapid  and  incalcul- 
ably profuse  multiplication  of  individuals  in 
many  species,  particularly  of  the  lower  orders, 
look  like  natural  stinginess,  or  even  moderate 
economy?  If  anyone  accustomed  to  think  of 
living  nature  as  economical  will  come  to  the 
Scripps  Institution  for  Biological  Research  any 
summer,  and  watch  miles  and  miles  of  the  sea 
take  on  in  the  course  of  a  week  or  two  a  green- 
ish-yellow tinge  by  day,  and  a  capacity  of  emit- 
ting light  by  night ;  will  try  to  estimate  the  num- 
ber and  rate  of  propagation  of  the  single  species 
of  microscopic  plant  which  usually  causes  these 
phenomena ;  his  notions  will  probably  undergo  a 


74  WAR,  SCIENCE 

great  loosening  up.  And  if  this  particular  case 
is  insufficient  to  bring  his  theories  into  con- 
formity with  facts,  we  will  help  him  to  see  the 
propagative  capacity  of  certain  little  animals 
called  copepods  of  the  crustacean  order,  and 
then  the  same  capacity  of  the  sardines  which  eat 
these  crustaceans,  and  in  turn  the  same  capacity 
of  the  albacore  which  eat  the  sardines,  and  in 
their  turn  yield  a  rich  harvest  of  a  useful  and 
pleasant  table  article  to  the  whole  nation,  via 
the  canneries  of  Southern  California.  Nothing 
in  the  results  of  zoological  research  is  more  im- 
pressive than  the  prodigality  of  the  animal  world 
taken  as  a  whole,  whether  regard  be  had  to  num- 
ber of  individuals  or  number  of  kinds.  No  zo- 
ologist whose  intellectual  retina  is  not  largely  a 
blind  spot  can  fail  to  see  this.  The  blinding 
power  of  sophistry  was  never  more  strikingly 
exhibited  than  in  its  ability  to  make  man  declare 
while  looking  at  such  phenomena  as  the  propaga- 
tion of  the  common  house  fly  and  man's  efforts 
to  exterminate  this  pest,  that  nature  produces 
only  just  as  many  individuals  as  are  necessary 
to  insure  the  perpetuity  of  the  species. 

The  diametrical  opposite  of  this  comes  much 
nearer  being  a  general  truth.  Nature  tends  to 
produce  an  unlimited  number  of  individuals,  the 
only  limitation  being  that  of  space  for  them  to 
occupy  and  food  for  them  to  eat.  Nor  is  this 
inherent  tendency  to  multiply  individuals  the 


AND  CIVILIZATION  75 

whole  evolution  story.  An  inherent  and  power- 
ful tendency  to  produce  varieties,  species, 
genera,  and  so  forth,  is  hardly  less  clearly  mani- 
fest, as  witness  the  prodigality  of  the  insect 
world  in  this  regard.  Darwin's  proposal  to 
make  "  overproduction  "  of  individuals  help  ex- 
plain the  origin  of  species  by  using  it  as  an  es- 
sential element  in  his  natural  selection  hypothe- 
sis, was  surely  a  master  stroke  at  finding  a 
natural  explanation  for  a  puzzling  natural  phe- 
nomenon. Unquestionably  the  hypothesis  has 
served  the  end  of  "  stimulating  research."  But 
he  himself  made  too  much  of  it,  as  he  saw  and 
acknowledged  before  he  died.  The  abuse  of  it 
by  some  other  biologists,  notably  by  the  English- 
man, A.  R.  Wallace,  and  the  German,  A.  Weis- 
mann,  to  make  it  serve  other  speculations  of 
theirs,  has  done  incalculable  harm,  not  only  to 
biology  but  to  sociology  and  to  human  welfare 
generally.  The  doctrine  that  all  human  prog- 
ress is  accomplished  by  somebody's  beating  some- 
body else,  usually  to  the  death,  has  had  such 
vogue  during  the  last  few  decades,  particularly 
in  business  and  politics,  that  it  sometimes  seems 
hopeless  to  get  people  to  see  how  far  it  comes 
from  agreeing  with  all  the  relevant  facts.  In- 
deed, as  for  business,  so  strong  has  been  the 
effort  to  make  practice  conform  to  the  doctrine 
that  the  doctrine  has  been  made  to  seem  true. 
Men  have  taken  whatever  measures  they  deemed 


76  WAR,  SCIENCE 

necessary  to  overcome  their  competitors,  and 
then  have  justified  their  conduct  by  appealing 
to  the  phrase  "  the  fittest  survive."  They  have 
started  with  the  hypothesis  (an  hypothesis  be- 
ing always  something  not  proved)  that  prog- 
ress is  due  to  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  and 
then  have  sinned  against  logic  by  reasoning 
that  their  own  survival  proves  both  the  truth  of 
the  hypothesis  and  their  own  fitness. 

IV.    THE  MIGHTY  POWER  OF  DEVELOP- 
MENTAL FORCES 

That  biology  has  not  discovered  all  the 
causes  of  the  growth  of  species  is  certain,  but 
neither  has  it  discovered  all  the  causes  of  the 
growth  of  individuals.  The  two  phenomena 
are  in  the  same  box  so  far  as  concerns  complete 
explanation.  The  one  thing  science  is  sure  of 
is  that  both  processes  are  natural  and  not  su- 
pernatural. Whatever  and  howsoever  many 
causes  there  may  be  contributing  to  organic  evo- 
lution, there  is  no  question  as  to  the  stupendous 
"  go  "  of  it.  Colonel  Clark's  squash  that  was 
found  able  to  lift  five  thousand  pounds  by  its 
growth  power,  is  now  known  to  have  been  in  no 
wise  exceptionally  strong.  Professor  George 
E.  Stone  has  lately  (Popular  Science  Monthly, 
September,  1913)  told  of  his  observations  on  a 
black  birch,  "  one  root  of  which  has  entered  a 
fissure  in  a  large  boulder  and  is  slowly  but  con- 


77 

stantly  lifting  this  enormous  weight."  Meas- 
urements and  specific  gravity  determinations  on 
the  boulder,  he  tells  us,  find  it  to  weigh  eighteen 
tons.  There  are  now  on  record  careful  meas- 
urements of  the  growth  force  of  many  kinds  of 
plants,  but  unfortunately  none  or  very  few  on 
animals.  A  study  of  the  strength  of  the  band- 
ages required  to  prevent  the  Chinese  girls'  feet 
from  growing  would  be  instructive;  but  I  have 
not  been  able  to  find  that  such  a  study  has  been 
made. 

It  is  certain  that  a  portion  of  this  power  of 
growing  plants  and  animals  is  due  to  such  well- 
known  physical  forces  as  osmosis,  capillarity, 
and  surface  tension.  Pieces  of  dry  wood  or 
rope  are  known  to  exert  great  power  when  wet- 
ted and  allowed  to  swell.  And  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  whole  phenomenon  in  living  beings 
rests  back  on  chemical  and  physical  action. 
But  certain  is  it  also  that  increase  in  mass  of 
living  substance  and  cell  multiplication  are 
forms  of  energy  in  some  measure  unique  just  as 
muscular  contraction  is.  Now  in  the  evolution 
of  the  individual  much  of  this  growth  force  is 
devoted  to  producing  a  mere  facsimile  of  the 
organism's  ancestors ;  but  there  are  quantities 
of  evidence  that  some  of  it  goes  to  make  the  in- 
dividuals somewhat  different  from  their  ances- 
tors ;  that  is,  to  make  different  kinds  of  indi- 
viduals the  very  essence  of  varieties  and  species. 


78  WAR,  SCIENCE 

This  sort  of  growth  is  probably  the  main  fac- 
tor in  producing  those  determinate  or  directed 
evolutionary  series  that  show  with  special  clear- 
ness in  palaeontology,  the  only  direct  historical 
record  we  have  of  racial  evolution.*  Taking  the 
whole  living  world  together,  we  must  look  upon 
the  human  species,  especially  on  its  higher,  its 
spiritual  side,  as  endowed  in  hundreds  of  attri- 
butes, with  incalculable  powers  of  growth  and 
functioning.  The  human  species,  with  all  its 
endowments,  is  a  Niagara  Falls  whose  powers 
are  only  partly  utilized.  It  is  a  Nile  Valley,  or 
an  Imperial  Valley,  awaiting  irrigating  water 
to  make  its  rich  soil  produce  more  abundant 
harvests.  It  is  Indian  corn  still  under  crude 
agriculture,  with  few  of  its  potentialities  yet  de- 
veloped. In  this  connection,  the  subject  of 
latent  and  hitherto  unrecognized  powers  of  hu- 
man beings,  so  impressively  treated  by  William 
James  in  his  well-known  address,  "  The  Ener- 
gies of  Men,"  should  be  recalled. 

*  Those  chemically-minded  biologists  whose  scientific 
conscience  permits  them  to  ignore  or  reject  the  vast  mass 
of  evidence  for  determinate  evolution  presented  by  gen- 
eral zoology  and  botany,  because  they  fear  such  recog- 
nition would  commit  them  to  vitalism  (though  it  would 
not  necessarily),  ought  at  least  to  be  influenced  to  some 
extent  by  such  an  argument  as  that  recently  made  by 
Professor  Arthur  Dendy  (Progressive  Evolution  and  the 
Origin  of  Species,  Amer.  Naturalist,  March,  1915). 
This  biologist  dwells  on  the  idea  that  "progressive  evo- 
lution must  follow  as  a  necessary  result  of  the  law  of  the 
accumulation  of  surplus  energy." 


AND  CIVILIZATION  79 

A  large  mass  of  biological,  anthropological, 
and  psychological  data  is  incontestably  opposed 
to  the  pronouncement  that  all  men  are  inher- 
ently and  hopelessly  lazy,  and  so  by  nature  are 
bound  to  work  only  when  they  are  compelled  to, 
either  by  external  force  or  physical  want.  The 
conception  of  latent  natural  energy  as  applied 
to  civilized  man  does  not  imply  that  every  man 
is  able  to  do  anything  and  everything.  The 
fact  of  organic  variation  is,  for  the  logically 
intelligent,  a  sure  antidote  against  such  inter- 
pretation. It  simply  means  that  every  normal 
human  being  possesses  much  more  energy  and 
desire  for  action  than  he  manifests  under  ordi- 
nary circumstances,  and  especially  circum- 
stances which  compel  him  to  work  against  his 
best  talent  and  will  and  liking. 

The  problem  of  human  culture,  according  to 
this  view,  consists  in  guiding  these  latent  forces. 
They  need  fostering  here  and  checking  there. 
Often  they  may  be  advantageously  transferred 
from  one  employment  to  another.  They  must 
be  correlated  and  balanced, —  in  a  word,  inte- 
grated. In  the  restricted  field  of  formal  intel- 
lectual education,  a  few  modern  leaders  have 
grasped  this  principle  quite  firmly.  Many  par- 
ents and  teachers  have  seen  it  more  or  less  dis- 
tinctly. But  as  a  general  conception  of  prog- 
ress in  civilization  it  seems  to  have  received  al- 
most no  effective  recognition. 


80  WAR,  SCIENCE 

It  is  now  the  common  practice  among  agri- 
cultural statisticians  to  talk  in  world  terms 
about  all  the  main  crops.  The  world's  wheat 
supply,  its  corn  supply,  its  beef  supply,  and  its 
cotton  and  wool  supply,  are  known  to  an  ap- 
proximation close  enough  to  serve  as  a  basis 
for  reasoning  in  several  ways.  Why  not  be 
moving  towards  similar  treatment  of  the  world's 
human  crop?  There  are  abundant  estimates  of 
the  earth's  population.  But  little  effort  seems 
to  have  been  made  to  calculate  the  civilizational 
value  of  this  crop  as  a  whole.  Hence  the  utter 
lack  of  check  on  a  particular  nation's  tendency 
to  assert  its  own  custodianship  over  the  jewel 
of  civilization.  Could  an  international  society 
for  the  study  of  civilization  appoint  a  commit- 
tee consisting  of  representatives  of  all  the  fore- 
most nations,  to  define  civilization  and  draw  up 
a  brief  statement  of  what  each  nation  has  con- 
tributed, and  could  this  report  become  generally 
known,  we  may  confidently  predict  that  boast- 
ing on  the  part  of  any  of  the  signatory  nations 
that  they  are  preeminently  the  civilized  nations 
of  the  earth  would  be  at  an  end.  Surely  it 
would  be  for  those  which  are  in  very  truth 
foremost.  A  certain  sensitive  regard  for  the 
feelings  of  others  and  dread  of  proclaiming 
one's  own  virtues  being  an  indispensable  attri- 
bute of  high  culture,  it  would  be  as  impossible 
for  the  best  citizens  of  a  nation  really  highest 


AND  CIVILIZATION  81 

in  civilization  to  assert  their  country's  superi- 
ority as  it  would  to  assert  the  general  superior- 
ity of  their  own  mothers  and  fathers.  The  ha- 
bitual braggart,  whether  by  word  or  deed,  is 
an  object  of  detestation  to  civilized  man.  An 
international  society  of  the  sort  suggested 
above  might  be  expected  to  put  an  anti-brag  ar- 
ticle into  its  constitution.  This  in  itself  would 
do  much  to  promote  understanding  and  good 
feeling  among  nations. 

V.  THE  INNATENESS  OF  DEVELOPMENTAL 
FORCES 

Such  a  way  of  viewing  human  culture  and  the 
problem  of  its  advance  could  not  fail  to  bring 
home  three  points  of  great  practical  impor- 
tance. First,  the  forces  of  progress  are  essen- 
tially self-acting,  so  that  in  a  very  fundamental 
sense  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  creating  a 
demand  for  articles  in  trade ;  or  of  giving  an 
education  to  the  young;  or  of  forcing  political, 
moral,  and  religious  ideas  upon  a  people.  The 
most  that  can  be  done  is  to  create  favorable 
conditions  for  the  development  of  the  latent 
capacities.  If  anyone  is  disposed  to  regard  the 
refinement  of  definition  of  the  terms  create  and 
produce  here  suggested  as  scholastic  quibbling, 
let  him  reflect  that  no  amount  of  advertising 
or  other  "  promoting  "  could  create  a  demand 
for,  let  us  say,  automobiles  among  chimpanzees, 


82  WAR,  SCIENCE 

even  though  rapid  travel  might  be  of  as  great 
survival  value  to  them  as  to  men.  Nor  could 
the  best  teachers  give  gorillas  an  education  in 
scientific  forestry,  notwithstanding  such  educa- 
tion might  be  of  great  use  to  them.  The  sec- 
ond point  is  that  looking  upon  the  culture- 
force  in  this  way  sets  out  in  clear  light  the  m- 
evitableness  of  many,  many  tendencies  among 
civilized  men.  Failure  to  see  them  in  this  light 
is  responsible  for  innumerable  ill-advised  or  fu- 
tile efforts  at  suppression  made  on  all  sides. 
Unquestionably,  an  elaborate  system  of  foster- 
ing and  checking  these  forces  is,  as  above  indi- 
cated, indispensable  to  progress.  But  un- 
doubtedly, too,  such  a  system  can  be  wise  only 
in  so  far  as  it  is  founded  on  the  best  under- 
standing attainable  of  the  nature  of  the  forces 
at  work.  Take,  by  way  of  illustration,  the 
problem  now  so  urgent  in  the  United  States, — 
a  tendency  of  the  population  to  flock  into  the 
cities.  The  extent  and  persistence  of  the  tend- 
ency must  mean  that  it  is  not  wholly  artificial. 
The  only  wise  way  of  dealing  with  it  is  to  an- 
alyze it  as  fully  as  possible  in  order  to  find  what 
elements  in  it  are  good  and  what  bad,  what  ones 
need  fostering,  what  ones  need  checking,  and 
what  measures  would  be  most  likely  to  accom- 
plish the  ends  aimed  at. 

The    third    point    is    that,    viewing    culture 


AND  CIVILIZATION  83 

forces  thus,  and  having  regard  to  their  variety, 
as  well  as  to  their  strength,  brings  out  not  only 
the  legitimacy,  but  also  the  desirability,  of  va- 
riety in  civilization.  This  touches  the  question 
of  internationalism.  The  idea  has  already  been 
expressed  that  the  nation  is  an  essential  instru- 
ment to  the  promotion  of  civilization.  We  re- 
iterate the  idea  now,  but  from  quite  a  different 
standpoint.  The  infinitely  varied  capacity  of 
men  is  fostered  by  national  life.  Social  cus- 
toms, literature,  painting,  sculpture,  and  the 
drama,  seem  especially  given  to  take  somewhat 
different  forms  in  different  nations ;  and  who 
would  hesitate  to  admit  that  these  great  do- 
mains of  human  concern  are  made  richer  and 
more  interesting  by  such  variety?  Who  would 
wish  to  have  the  variety  diminished?  Do  we 
not  enjoy  and  profit  by  Japanese  art  largely 
because  it  is  different  from  our  own?  Should 
we  not  regard  it  as  a  calamity  rather  than  as 
a  gain  to  civilization,  were  the  Orientals  to  put 
aside  altogether  their  social  customs  and  adopt 
ours?  Surely  an  open-minded,  open-hearted 
citizen  of  any  nation,  no  matter  how  ardent  and 
lofty  his  patriotism,  must  grow  larger  and  bet- 
ter of  soul  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  he  can 
find  some  good  things  in  the  culture  of  other 
nations  which  he  cannot  find  in  his  own;  and 
this  without  detracting  one  jot  from  the  love 


84  WAR,  SCIENCE 

of  what  he  has  at  home,  or  his  appreciation  of 
the  achievements  and  his  devotion  to  the  institu- 
tions of  his  own  land. 

VI.  ARTIFICIAL  EMPIRES  VIOLATE  NATURE'S 
PRINCIPLES  OF  VARIETY  AND  UNITY 

,A  few  paragraphs  back,  the  prediction  was 
ventured  that  could  certain  conditions  there  in- 
dicated be  realized,  boastfulness  would  be  at 
an  end.  From  considerations  like  those  just 
adverted  to,  the  number  of  which  might  be  easily 
multiplied  a  thousandfold,  another  enemy  to 
civilization  quite  as  dire  as  boastfulness  would 
also  be  at  an  end.  Reference  is  made  to  the 
ambition  for  world  empire  that  from  time  to 
time  in  the  recent  history  of  the  human  species 
has  become  an  obsession  of  a  few  men  abnor- 
mally endowed  with  capacity  for  leadership  in 
war  or  politics,  or  both.  To  the  biologist,  fa- 
miliar as  he  is  with  the  innumerable  grades  of 
success  and  failure  attending  the  forward-move- 
ment of  organic  evolution,  nothing  is  more  in- 
teresting than  the  great  empires,  so-called, 
which  in  the  course  of  human  progress  have 
come  into  being,  lasted  for  a  day,  and  disap- 
peared, leaving  only  scattered  marks  on  the 
territory  over  which  they  extended,  on  the 
pages  of  history,  and  in  the  imaginations  of 
succeeding  generations.  Take  the  empire  of 
Alexander,  with  its  hodge-podge  of  races,  Ian- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  85 

guages,  grades  of  culture,  and  social,  religious, 
and  political  institutions ;  and  held  together  by 
bonds  no  stronger  than  a  few  sacrifices  by  the 
conqueror  to  the  gods  of  the  conquered,  a  few 
marriages  between  the  invading  soldiers  and  the 
women  of  the  subdued  peoples,  and  the  futile 
efforts  by  the  hero  to  force  his  governmental 
policies,  if  such  they  could  be  called,  on  the 
subject  countries.  The  biological  evolutionist 
cannot  avoid  comparing  such  empires  with  ani- 
mals like  the  giant  devil-fish  and  squid,  which 
though  huge  in  bulk  and  mighty  in  grasping 
and  devouring  capacity,  are  still  inchoate  so  far 
as  true  animal  greatness  is  concerned;  their 
chief  integrating  organs,  the  blood  and  nervous 
systems,  being  of  notably  crude  and  inefficient 
pattern.  And  what  an  assortment  of  such  em- 
pires European  history  in  particular  presents ! 
One  needs  to  mention  only  the  Roman  Empire, 
Charlemagne's  empire,  and  Napoleon's  empire. 

A  profound  knowledge  of  history  is  not  nec- 
essary to  reveal  something  of  the  cost  in  treas- 
ure and  blood  resulting  from  the  efforts  of 
strong  men  to  force  their  ideas  and  wishes  upon 
their  fellows.  A  particularly  striking,  and 
from  one  standpoint,  surprising,  thing  is  the  ex- 
tent to  which  men  professing  the  Christian  re- 
ligion have  been  guilty  of  this  folly. 

It  began  at  least  as  early  as  the  fourth  cen- 
tury of  our  era  when  Theodosius  I,  an  especially 


86  WAR,  SCIENCE 

zealous  Christian  Emperor  of  Rome,  tried  to 
make  all  the  pagan  parts  of  his  empire  Chris- 
tian by  edict.  After  defining  who  were  entitled 
to  be  called  Christian,  he  said  in  one  of  his  nu- 
merous edicts,  "  we  judge  that  all  others  are 
extravagant  madmen  " ;  and  that  "  besides  the 
condemnation  of  Divine  Justice,  they  must  ex- 
pect to  suffer  the  severe  penalties  which  our 
authority,  guided  by  Heavenly  wisdom,  shall 
think  proper  to  inflict  upon  them."  The  re- 
sults of  this  policy  as  touching  one  lot  of  peo- 
ple is  summed  up  by  a  German  historian, 
Adolph  Erman,  thus :  "  The  establishment  of 
the  new  religion  was  the  death-blow  of  old 
Egypt,  for  a  people  is  dead  when  it  has  denied 
its  gods."  This  is  a  type  of  many  experiments 
furnished  by  the  history  of  Western  civiliza- 
tion. 

An  unbiased  witness  of  the  present  European 
upheaval  searches  vainly  through  the  pub- 
lished utterances  of  Wilhelm  II  of  Germany 
and  things  that  have  been  written  about  him, 
for  proof  that  his  face  is  set  positively  against 
this  centuries'  old  conception  of  a  Christian 
ruler's  duty.  The  evidence  is  ample  that  until 
now,  at  least,  he  has  not  been  an  upholder  of 
the  theory.  He  certainly  has  never  had  the  no- 
tion that  he  must  use  his  power  to  compel  his 
neighbors  to  accept  his  particular  religious  be- 
liefs and  conceptions  of  duty,  as  has  been  the 


AND  CIVILIZATION  87 

case  in  bygone  times  with  many  persons  pos- 
sessed of  great  power.  And  this  fact  is  very 
weighty  evidence  for  the  view  that  the  world  is 
really  much  farther  advanced  now  in  civiliza- 
tion than  it  was  even  a  few  centuries  ago.  But 
what  the  world  needs  today  is  evidence  that  the 
great  national  rulers  hold  the  theory  antithetic 
to  this  and  familiar  to  all  Christians  in  the  as- 
sertion that  God's  kingdom  is  spiritual.  The 
Kaiser  seems  not  to  have  grasped  the  deep  truth 
contained  in  such  formulations.  And  its  in- 
compatibility with  the  conception  of  the  state 
prevailing  in  Germany  appears  to  have  been  per- 
ceived by  but  few  Germans.  Occupied,  as  the 
Emperor's  mind  necessarily  is,  with  coexisting 
splendor  and  weakness  of  the  old  German  Empire 
of  Barbarossa,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  words 
of  Tacitus  Propter  inmdium  (through  envy)  as 
applied  to  the  Germans,  should  fill  him  with 
dread  of  such  a  "  cosmopolitanism  "  as  charac- 
terized that  big,  unnatural  aggregation.  As 
opposed  to  this  sort  of  thing  the  nationalism  of 
modern  Germany  is  magnificent  in  both  theory 
and  practice.  But  in  so  far  as  it  permits  the 
watchword,  "  Germany,  Germany  above  every- 
thing," to  be  understood  as  meaning  that  Ger- 
man culture  and  German  ideals  must  be  made  to 
dominate  the  world  some  day,  even  if  war  has 
to  be  one  of  the  instruments  employed  for  ac- 
complishing the  end,  it  is  a  sore  misfortune  not 


88  WAR,  SCIENCE 

only  for  the  world  at  large,  but  for  Germany. 

Martin  Luther,  a  great  German  like  Wilhelm 
II,  but  because  a  peasant  instead  of  a  Hohenzol- 
lern,  was  able  to  see  with  considerable  distinct- 
ness the  tremendous  truth  that  nothing  which 
has  been  proved  to  be  of  supreme  worth  to  man- 
kind generally  can  be  such  to  any  individual  man 
unless  it  be  voluntarily  accepted ;  that  the  most 
precious  thing  is  robbed  of  its  preciousness  to 
anyone  upon  whom  it  is  forced.  "  Do  not,"  said 
Luther  to  his  Wittenberg  associates,  overzeal- 
ous  in  propagating  his  teachings,  "  make  a 
'  must  be  '  out  of  a  '  may  be.'  '  Summa  sum- 
marum,'  I  will  preach  it,  I  will  talk  it,  I  will 
write  about  it,  but  I  will  not  use  force  or  com- 
pulsion with  any  one."  Immortal  words  these! 

About  the  noblest  self-discipline  a  man  can 
acquire  comes  from  seeing  more  clearly  than  his 
neighbor  what  is  good  for  the  latter,  and  yet 
refraining  from  using  force  which  is  his  to  use, 
for  imposing  it  upon  that  neighbor.  There  is  a 
world  of  difference  between  a  non-force  doctrine 
of  this  sort,  and  the  sort  that  would  endure  any 
indignity  rather  than  repel  it  by  force. 

No  faithful  student  of  organic  evolution  can 
fail  to  think  about  the  British  Empire  from  this 
standpoint.  Not,  of  course,  to  pronounce  it 
doomed  to  go  the  way  of  all  the  others  just 
because  the  others  have  gone;  but  to  raise  the 


AND  CIVILIZATION  89 

question  whether  in  this  case  integrative  forces 
sufficiently  powerful  are  at  work  to  comply  with 
the  biologic  principle  of  integration.  Although 
it  is  neither  my  province  nor  is  this  the  place 
to  attempt  an  answer,  this  one  remark  may  be 
made:  in  so  far  as  the  Briton  has  discovered 
and  has  acted  in  accordance  with  the  discovery 
that  the  integrative  forces  of  civilization  are  in- 
herent, resident,  and  essentially  self-operative, 
and  not  to  be  imposed  by  external  authority,  he 
has  gone  farther  toward  conformity  with  bio- 
logic evolution  generally  than  has  been  the  case 
in  any  of  the  former  attempts  at  unlimited  em- 
pire. There  are  evidences  not  a  few  in  recent 
years  that  the  highly  cultivated  sections  of  the 
British  Empire,  even  though  widely  detached 
geographically  from  other  portions,  are  bound 
to  the  whole  by  internal  adhesive  forces  and  not 
by  compulsion  from  the  central  authority ;  in 
other  words,  that  they  remain  in  the  Empire, 
even  though  they  might,  if  they  so  desired,  be- 
come peacefully  independent  or  attach  them- 
selves to  some  other  country.  This  appears  to 
be  the  case  with  Canada.  In  so  far  as  such  a 
situation  is  reached,  there  is  conformity  to  the 
principle  of  integration  in  biologic  evolution, 
and  so  far  as  this  matter  is  concerned,  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  Empire  is  assured  during  the 
prevalence  of  these  conditions. 


90  WAR,  SCIENCE 

VII.    SCIENCE  AND  HUMAN  BROTHERHOOD 

Our  consideration  of  the  magnitude  of  human 
nature  has  so  far  only  touched  the  differentia- 
tive  side  of  human  evolution.  Fidelity  to  our 
general  idea  requires  us  to  touch  it  on  the  in- 
tegrative  side  as  well.  Were  the  treatment  on 
this  side  to  be  comprehensive,  it  would  reach  to 
the  whole  mass  of  facts  on  which  the  theory  of 
the  unity  of  the  human  race  is  based.  It  would 
begin  with  racial  anatomy  and  physiology ;  and 
the  close  similarity  of  all  the  peoples  —  no  mat- 
ter how  diverse  in  such  particulars  as  color  of 
skin  and  eyes  and  hair,  shape  of  head,  structure 
of  hair,  type  of  features  —  would  be  set  forth 
in  detail.  The  bones  and  muscles  and  blood, 
reproductive  organs,  and  nervous  system,  would 
all  be  gone  over  part  by  part,  to  bring  out  the 
"  practical  identity,"  as  the  usual  dissecting 
room  language  has  it,  of  all  these  systems.  So 
far  as  the  ordinary  medical  student  is  con- 
cerned, it  makes  not  the  slightest  difference 
whether  the  cadaver  from  which  he  studies  anat- 
omy is  that  of  a  white  man,  a  black  man,  a 
red  man,  a  brown  man,  or  a  yellow  man. 

But  all  this  we  pass  by.  It  has  been  touched 
upon  only  as  a  reminder  of  what  a  vast  and 
convincing  body  of  physical  evidence  there  is 
in  the  background  that  all  men  are  very  close 
of  kin.  Following  close  behind  all  this  ana- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  91 

tomical-physiological  evidence  of  unity,  would 
come  that  from  palaeontology  and  archaeology. 
But  this  we  pass,  also,  mentioning  it  only  in  the 
interest  of  making  the  background  of  the  dis- 
cussion still  more  secure. 

Our  main  interest  is  in  the  unity  of  man  on 
the  plane  of  his  higher  life.  The  treatment 
may  take  the  form  of  a  brief  inquiry  into  the 
meaning  of  the  phrase,  "  the  brotherhood  of 
man  " ;  and  its  cognate  one,  "  the  golden  rule." 
The  conceptions  expressed  by  these  phrases 
have  played  a  great  role  in  the  cultural  ad- 
vancement of  man.  Hitherto,  the  force  they 
have  had  has  been  almost  wholly  in  their  appeal 
to  the  emotional,  to  the  affective  side  of  man's 
nature,  and  very  little  in  their  appeal  to  the 
rational  side.  They  have  had  the  sanction  and 
the  authority  of  religion,  particularly  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  they  have  been  the  rallying-cry  of 
many  groups  and  classes  of  men  banded  to- 
gether against  a  common  enemy,  or  for  the  at- 
tainment of  a  common  good.  But  they  have 
had  little  or  no  positive,  unqualified  support 
from  the  side  of  reason  and  science.  Indeed, 
too  widely  has  it  been  assumed,  both  by  men  of 
science  and  men  of  religion  and  ethics,  that  these 
great  conceptions  are  the  exclusive  province  of 
religion.  Such  a  view  seems  to  be  the  chief 
ground  on  which  Tolstoi,  Brunetiere,  and  other 
intense  lovers  of  mankind  have  based  their  in- 


92  WAR,  SCIENCE 

dictment  of  modern  science  as  having  proved 
its  inability  to  contribute  anything  essential  to 
human  welfare  and  happiness. 

But  from  the  standpoint  of  this  discussion, 
one  of  science's  supreme  tasks  is  to  test  these 
conceptions  by  its  familiar  methods  and  in  the 
light  of  its  other  findings.  The  province  of  hu- 
man biology  is  to  take  the  very  widely  observed 
phenomenon  of  fellow-feeling  as  it  takes  any 
other  fact  pertaining  to  man  (his  instinct  of 
propagation,  for  example),  and  see  what  can 
be  made  of  it  —  whether  it  is  simple  or  com- 
plex, how  it  is  related  to  other  elements  in  his 
nature,  how  it  has  grown  up,  and  so  on.  Such 
study  discovers  for  one  thing  that  fellow-feeling 
is  the  extreme  term  of  the  integrative  series  of 
human  evolution.  As  such,  it  is  of  supreme 
biological  interest.  It  is  as  interesting  in  the 
study  of  the  species  as  is  the  nervous  system 
and  its  functions  in  the  study  of  the  individual. 

Numerous  and  great  researches  bearing  di- 
rectly and  indirectly  on  the  question  have  been 
prosecuted,  especially  during  the  last  half  cen- 
tury ;  and  from  such  a  monumental  work  as  that 
of  Westermarck  on  "  The  Origin  and  Develop- 
ment of  Moral  Ideas  "  we  are  able  to  get  a 
rather  clear  picture  of  how  the  conception  of 
brotherhood  has  gradually  come  forth  from  the 
long  and  extremely  checkered  course  of  human 
history.  A  chapter  in  that  work  entitled, 


AND  CIVILIZATION  93 

"  The  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Altruistic 
Sentiment,"  is  particularly  useful  to  this  end. 
From  this  presentation  we  may  summarize  the 
course  of  things  as  follows :  At  the  foundation 
of  social  groups,  the  notion  of  physical  kindred 
has  always  been  present.  This  is  based  on  the 
primal  and  universal  fact  of  the  parent-off- 
spring relation.  The  notion  is  often  held, 
though  in  reality  it  may  be  a  mere  fiction  — 
sometimes  religious,  sometimes  political,  and 
sometimes  a  fiction  of  quite  another  character. 
"  The  doctrine  of  Nationalism,"  says  Wester- 
marck,  "  is  the  spectre  of  the  same  political 
principle  —  the  principle  of  a  common  descent, 
either  real  or  fictitious  —  on  which  states  were 
founded  and  governed  when  civilization  was  in 
its  cradle." 

And  here  it  may  be  remarked  that  Christians 
accustomed  to  regard  the  brotherhood  of  man 
as  in  some  essential  way  involved  with  miracu- 
lous, supernatural  occurrences,  should  think  far 
more  earnestly  than  they  usually  do  of  the  ef- 
fort made  in  the  New  Testament  scripture  to 
trace  the  physical  genealogy  of  the  founder  of 
their  religion.  They  ought  not  to  pass  over, 
as  they  are  wont  to  do,  that  opening  phrase  of 
St.  Matthew's  Gospel,  "  The  Book  of  the  Gen- 
eration (or  birth)  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of 
David,  the  Son  of  Abraham."  Apparently 
here,  as  everywhere  on  earth,  man  born  of  a 


94-  WAR,  SCIENCE 

mother  and  father  is  at  the  deepest  roots  of 
fellow-feeling.  The  idea  of  supernatural  inter- 
vention to  make  the  begotten  something  other 
than  what  he  would  be  by  nature  is  unmistak- 
ably an  after-thought,  an  on-grafting,  usually 
by  a  priestly  hand,  but  frequently  and  omi- 
nously by  a  military  hand. 

Almost  as  general  as  has  been  recognition  of 
parenthood  as  the  initial  bond  among  men,  has 
been  that  of  the  notion  of  blood-bond.  The  lat- 
ter is  broader  in  that  kinship  is  assumed  al- 
though immediate  parent-child  relationship  does 
not  exist,  and  the  degree  of  its  removal  may  be 
remote  and  dubious.  The  importance  of  this 
distinction  should  not  be  missed.  It  involves 
the  fundamental,  the  vital  truth  that  despite  a 
considerable  remoteness  of  individuals  by  actual 
birth,  there  is  still  that  in  their  natures  which 
makes  it  possible  for  them  to  bind  themselves 
together  into  unities,  often  of  great  coherence. 
Thus  the  Roman  gens,  originally  a  group  of 
blood-relatives  inhabiting  a  common  district, 
was  already  in  early  times  recruited  from  people 
of  alien  extraction  who  were  "  assumed  to  be 
descended  from  a  common  ancestor."  "  As- 
sumed," and  not  known,  be  it  noted,  "  to  be  de- 
scended from  a  common  ancestor."  The  point 
is  that  the  adopted  member  of  the  social  unit 
may  obtain  as  firm  a  place  within  the  unit  as 
the  born-in  member.  Indeed,  it  is  contended  by 


AND  CIVILIZATION  95 

Dr.  Frazer  that  even  among  peoples  as  far  down 
in  the  culture  scale  as  the  natives  of  Australia 
and  northwestern  America  the  totem  bond  may 
be  stronger  than  the  blood  bond.  Although 
Westermarck  does  not  hold  Frazer's  instances 
to  be  conclusive  evidence  on  the  great  force  of 
the  totem  bond,  it  is  certain  that  in  effect  the 
brother  by  adoption  may  be  quite  as  real  as 
the  brother  by  birth.  Time  and  time  again  do 
we  see  proof  of  this  in  modern  civilized  society 
when  the  adopted  child  is  even  of  different  na- 
tionality from  the  adopting  family. 

So  the  bond  of  human  brotherhood,  though 
based  first  and  foremost  and  always  in  biologic 
heredity,  still  is  so  expansive  as  to  go  rapidly 
and  widely  beyond  the  limits  of  actual  birth 
kindred  into  the  expanse  of  man's  affective  na- 
ture, there  to  find  new,  more  numerous,  and 
still  stronger  elements  of  coherence.  And  so  it 
is  that  even  ethical  and  religious  sanctions  of 
brotherhood  are  found  to  be  strictly  phenomena 
of  man's  nature, —  that  is,  natural  phenomena. 

But  there  is  yet  more  of  significance  to  be 
revealed  by  a  rational  inquiry  into  the  con- 
ception of  human  brotherhood.  Earlier  we 
touched  on  the  integrative  power  of  natural  sci- 
ence arising  from  the  certainty  and  universality 
of  the  facts  and  laws  of  nature.  We  must  now 
return  to  the  subject,  this  time  from  the  mar- 
velously  widespread  capacity  of  the  human 


96  WAR,  SCIENCE 

mind  to  react  in  the  same  way  to  these  facts, 
and  to  reach  the  same  interpretations  of  these 
laws.  How  many  of  us  have  reflected  as  care- 
fully as  we  ought  to  on  such  a  fact  as  that  Jap- 
anese and  Chinese  men  of  science  are  describing 
natural  objects  and  reasoning  about  them 
with  quite  as  great  a  degree  of  correspond- 
ence as  subsists  between  the  descriptions  by 
English  and  German  scientists,  or  even  be- 
tween Englishmen  among  themselves,  or  Ger- 
mans among  themselves?  In  the  light  of  our 
modern  conceptions  of  physiologic-psycholog- 
ical processes,  how  can  we  avoid  concluding 
that  in  spite  of  the  numberless  ages  and  gen- 
erations that  have  elapsed  since  there  was  a 
common  ancestor  for  Oriental  and  Occidental, 
and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  during  all  these 
ages  and  generations  there  had  been  no  common 
effort  in  these  fundamental  matters,  there  still 
is  a  unity  of  brain  structure,  subtle  beyond  any 
hope  of  direct  scientific  observation  and  experi- 
mentation to  prove?  It  seems  as  though  we 
must  recognize  in  facts  like  these  that  to  the 
affectional  elements  in  human  brotherhood, 
mighty  in  power  but  often  fitful  in  action,  there 
is  added  a  rational  element  which,  though  less 
applicable  to  the  rank  and  file  of  men  and  less 
intense  of  action,  is  more  solid  and  trustworthy 
and  enduring. 

We  must  not  fail   to  notice  that  the  affec- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  97 

tional  elements  themselves  do  not  remain  ex- 
actly what  they  were  before  they  were  re- 
inforced by  the  rational  elements.  Beyond 
question,  the  affection  between  men  who  have  a 
common  intellectual  interest  as  well  as  a  mere 
feeling  of  congeniality  for  each  other,  or  even 
the  deeper  feeling  that  comes  with  membership 
in  the  same  church  or  fraternal  order,  is  some- 
what different  in  kind  from  that  which  has  no 
such  interest.  Nor  is  there  any  doubt  that  on 
the  whole  the  bonds  thus  re-inforced  and  quali- 
tatively altered  are  stronger  and  more  endur- 
ing. In  spite  of  the  intense  and  wholly  sincere 
professions  of  love  among  the  members  of  re- 
ligious organizations,  quarrels  within  these  are 
proverbially  bitter.  No  one  engaged  in  a  learned 
pursuit  would  contend  that  the  bond  of  com- 
mon intellectual  and  scientific  interest,  even  at 
its  best,  is  ever  unrupturable.  It  is,  however, 
significant  that  the  history  of  science  and  learn- 
ing presents  no  such  bloody  internecine  war  as 
does  the  history  of  religion. 

The  trend  of  our  inquiry  may  now  be  stated 
in  a  form  that  might  appear  dogmatic  if  illus- 
trative material  were  not  everywhere  visible. 
On  its  integrative  side,  progress  in  human  cul- 
ture consists  in  preserving  a  balance  between 
the  affective  and  the  rational  elements  of  "  the 
brotherhood  of  man,"  and  also  in  such  an  in- 
teraction of  these  two  groups  of  elements  that 


98  WAR,  SCIENCE 

they  actually  modify  each  other  qualitatively. 
From  the  standpoint  of  biological  evolution, 
progress  in  civilization  may  be  characterized  as 
the  differentiation  and  intensification  of  love 
and  intellect,  and  of  the  inteUectualizing  of  love 
and  the  affectionizing  of  intellect. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE       PSYCHOLOGICAL      EFFECTS      OF 
ADOPTING     THE     HYPOTHESES     OF 
MAN'S  CAPACITY  FOR  UNLIMITED 
PROGRESS,  AND  NATURE'S  CA- 
PACITY FOR  HIS  UNLIM- 
ITED SUSTENTATION 

The  last  of  the  four  topics  now  being  dis- 
cussed, the  vastness  of  nature,  is  finally  reached. 
It  was  touched  before  to  the  extent  of  recogniz- 
ing the  fact  that  nature  is  incalculably  great  in 
forms  and  forces,  and  that  the  course  of  scien- 
tific dis'covery  does  not  warrant  us  in  fixing  any 
limit  to  its  magnitude,  but  does  warrant  the 
"  working  hypothesis "  which,  fully  appre- 
hended, amounts  to  a  mighty  faith  that  there  is 
practically  no  limit  to  nature's  capacity  for 
yielding  to  man  all  those  things  which,  from 
sources  outside  himself,  he  truly  needs. 

We  are  to  consider  now  the  psychological  ef- 
fect, speaking  in  common  parlance,  of  man's 
viewing  nature  thus.  To  be  more  exact,  the 
question  before  us  is,  were  such  an  hypothesis  of 

human  nature  as  that  sketched  above,  and  an- 
99 


100  WAR,  SCIENCE 

other  of  the  unlimited  capacity  of  nature  for  the 
support  of  man,  to  be  actually  adopted  by  the 
foremost  nations  as  a  working  basis,  what  would 
be  the  effect  on  the  attitude  and  conduct  of  men 
toward  one  another  and  toward  nature?  Mani- 
festly this  is  too  gigantic  a  problem  to  be  fully 
treated  here.  But  assuming  that  the  solution 
would  have  an  essential  bearing  on  the  central 
thesis  of  this  essay, —  namely,  that  if  man  would 
make  the  earth  yield  the  most  possible  for  his 
wants,  he  must  find  a  more  rational  and  effective 
way  of  distributing  it  than  by  means  of  war, — 
then  that  solution  must  be  statable  in  rather 
brief  and  familiar  language,  or  it  can  never  be- 
come practically  operative. 

I.     NEGATIVE:     BANISHING  DREAD  OF 
" TRAGEDY  OF  POPULATION  " 

In  the  first  place,  these  two  hypotheses,  ac- 
cepted with  genuine  seriousness,  would  banish 
forever  all  those  fears  concerning  nature  which 
must  be  regarded  as  unreasoned  or  superstitious 
as  contrasted  with  reasoned  and  legitimate 
fears.  No  one  will  have  difficulty  in  bringing 
to  mind  plenty  of  illustrations  of  the  difference 
between  these  two  kinds  of  fear.  The  sailor's 
dread  of  the  "  evil  eye  "  in  a  gale,  and  the  pas- 
senger's dread  of  starting  on  a  difficult  voyage 
on  Friday  or  on  the  thirteenth  of  the  month,  are 
familiar  examples  of  superstitious  fear;  while 
the  fear  of  icebergs  when  the  ship  is  in  an  ice- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  101 

berg  region,  and  of  collision  with  another  ship 
in  a  fog,  are  examples  of  legitimate  or  reasoned 
fears. 

Further,  there  are  two  distinct  kinds  of  su- 
perstitious fear.  There  is  that  which  magnifies 
the  destructive  forces  of  nature  by  imputing  to 
them  positive  malevolence  to  man,  or  by  con- 
ceiving them  to  be  hopelessly,  because  divinely, 
intractable  to  man.  Then  there  is  the  kind 
which  assumes  a  limitation,  not  warranted  by 
the  facts,  to  the  providing  power  of  nature. 
Our  concern  is  with  the  latter ;  but  we  ought  to 
notice  that  while  the  first  kind  is  preeminently 
characteristic  of  peoples  low  in  culture,  the  sec- 
ond is  more  characteristic  of  those  advanced  in 
culture.  It  is  a  concomitant  of  the  attribute 
of  foresight,  of  concern  about  the  future,  which 
is  very  little  developed  in  primitive  men. 

Savages  do  not  theorize  about  "  over-crowd- 
ing "  at  some  future  time ;  right  on  the  spot 
they  "  check  the  increase  of  population,"  using 
Malthus's  language,  by  killing  off  some  of  the 
infants  and  the  aged  and  the  incapacitated,  if 
these  are  found  burdensome.  The  doctrine  of 
"  tragedy  of  population "  referred  to  on  an 
earlier  page  contains  an  element  of  genuinely 
superstitious  fear  mingled  with  legitimate  fear. 
It  is  worth  while  to  ask  in  passing  whether  peo- 
ple of  the  old,  densely  populated  portions  of 
Asia  and  Europe  have  not  had  ground  into 
them,  perhaps  quite  unconsciously,  a  measure 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNL 


102  WAR,  SCIENCE 

of  this  dread  that  we  of  America  and  the  newer, 
less  congested  parts  of  the  earth  cannot  fully 
understand  because  we  have  not  been  subjected 
to  the  grinding  process  for  so  many  genera- 
tions. How  far  are  the  notes  of  disgust  and 
despair  that  run  so  strongly  through  the  litera- 
ture and  philosophy  of  Southern  Asia  due  to 
it?  How  much  of  Europe's  bellicose  pessimism 
is  chargeable  to  it? 

To  rid  the  human  mind  of  superstitious  fear, 
no  matter  of  what  sort,  is  universally  recog- 
nized as  one  of  the  great  desiderata  of  human 
culture;  so  even  from  this  negative  side,  if  such 
an  hypothesis  of  nature  is  justifiable  and  really 
promises  release  from  the  shackles  of  supersti- 
tion, no  persuasive  effort  should  be  spared  to 
secure  its  adoption.  But  the  best  reason  for 
wishing  that  such  an  hypothesis  might  prevail 
is  found  in  the  influence  it  would  almost  cer- 
tainly have  on  the  positive  side,  the  side  of  mo- 
tive and  stimulus  to  work. 

II.     POSITIVE:    IMBUING  PRODUCTIVE 
EFFORT  WITH  RELIGIOUS  ZEAL 

Let  us  go  directly  to  the  heart  of  the  matter. 
Beyond  a  doubt,  as  I  am  persuaded,  such  hy- 
potheses of  nature  and  man  would  imbue  with  a 
genuinely  religious  zeal  all  leadership  in  the 
tasks  of  conserving,  developing,  distributing, 
and  wisely  using  the  resources  of  nature.  This 


AND  CIVILIZATION  103 

is  no  time  for  metaphysical  discussion,  still  less 
for  theological  discussion.  But  it  is  a  supreme 
time  for  recognizing  the  mighty  power  of  re- 
ligion in  the  affairs  of  men. 

The  experiences  and  observations  since  the 
beginning  of  the  war  ought  to  convince  those 
who  have  supposed  religion  to  be  a  thing  of  the 
past  for  those  who  like  themselves  are  leaders  in 
culture,  that  in  reality  it  is  about  the  most 
alive  and  fundamental  element  in  human  nature 
today  just  as  it  always  has  been.  They  ought 
to  see  that  for  practical  men  the  problem  should 
be  not  that  of  getting  a  final  definition  of  re- 
ligion, but  of  how  to  use  it  for  the  world's  high- 
est good.  Even  philosophers  ought  to  recog- 
nize by  this  time  that  study  of  the  workings  of 
religion  and  framing  tentative  definitions  of  it 
would  be  more  profitable  than  speculating  on  its 
ultimate  nature. 

In  conformity  with  this  suggestion,  I  present 
a  characterization  of  it  that  will  serve  in  the 
present  discussion.  The  religion  of  a  man  who 
has  reached  a  high  state  of  culture  is  the  faith- 
reaction  of  his  whole  self  to  the  whole  universe 
outside  of  himself.  Of  General  Joffre  a  recent 
writer  (Ernest  Dimnet,  Atlantic  Monthly, 
March,  1915)  testifies:  "He  has  given  proof 
of  unparalleled  faith  in  what  he  regards  as  the 
truth ;  and  that  his  moral  energy  is  on  a  par 
with  his  military  ability  " ;  and  further  that  his 


104  WAR,  SCIENCE 

"  technical  superiority "  is  associated  with  a 
"  moral  power  without  which  mere  generalship 
is  little,  and,  in  fact,  hardly  ever  exists."  This 
case  illustrates  my  characterization  all  the  bet- 
ter in  that  Joffre  is  said  to  be  "  at  least  indif- 
ferent to  religion  " —  meaning,  I  take  it,  that  he 
has  no  interest  in  the  Catholic,  or  probably  any 
other  dogmatic,  formulations  and  practices  con- 
nected with  religion. 

For  promoting  the  utilization  of  religious 
zeal  to  the  ends  here  indicated,  a  few  remarks 
are  presented  on  the  strong  influences  that  have 
been  at  work  in  recent  years  to  rob  civilization 
of  this  zeal. 

Modern  speculative  science,  admittedly  not 
free  from  the  imperfections  and  liabilities  to 
error  common  to  all  things  human,  has  never 
gone  more  grievously  and  unfortunately  wrong 
than  in  undertaking  to  deny  the  essentiality  of 
religion.  What  though  in  the  name  of  religion 
the  foulest  of  practices  have  found  sanction,  the 
direst  of  superstitions  have  flourished,  and  the 
exercise  of  the  mind  in  interpreting  nature  and 
man  has  been  stunted  and  distorted  almost 
beyond  recognition !  How  can  the  truly  scien- 
tific student  of  the  human  animal  fail  to  see  in 
these  dreadful  reckonings  against  religion,  evi- 
dence not  of  its  spuriousness  or  unessentiality 
or  transitoriness,  but  of  its  liability  to  go 
wrong,  to  work  tremendous  harm  as  well  as  tre- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  105 

mendous  good?  For  such  a  student  cannot  fail 
to  see  that  most  of  the  noblest  accomplishments 
of  man  have  been  permeated  with  the  spirit  of 
religion,  if  not  done  in  its  express  name.  The 
greatest  discoveries  in  physical  science  even, 
have  been  made  by  men  of  intense  religious  na- 
tures. The  assumption  widely  held  that  be- 
cause many  of  the  supreme  geniuses  in  physical 
discovery  have  been  persecuted  by  the  Church, 
therefore  they  themselves  were  hostile  or  indif- 
ferent to  religion,  is  wholly  unwarranted.^  In 
numerous  cases,  as  those  of  Copernicus,  Galileo, 
Kepler,  Harvey,  Newton,  and  Priestly,  it  is  on 
record  that  their  care  about  religion  was  very 
positive.  For  speculators  on  the  phenomena  of 
nature  and  human  nature  to  argue  that  the 
facts  presented  by  these  men's  lives  proves  only 
that  they  were  subject  to  the  errors  and  follies 
of  their  time,  is  but  another  manifestation  of 
the  common  tendency  of  mortals  to  warp  facts 
into  conformity  with  theories.  The  attributes 
of  imagination  and  religion  are  somehow  so  re- 
lated to  each  other  in  men  supremely  endowed 
for  the  study  of  nature  that  they  will  not  suffer 
themselves  to  be  rent  asunder.  Instances  of 
this  in  our  own  time  are  abundant.  Louis  Pas- 
teur and  Lord  Kelvin  are  especially  notable 
ones.  Thomas  Huxley's  declaration,  quoted 
by  Leuba  ("  A  Psychological  Study  of  Re- 
ligion," page  24),  "  Science  prospers  exactly  in 


106  WAR,  SCIENCE 

proportion  as  it  is  religious,"  is  fully  justified 
by  the  history  of  scientific  discovery. 

Those  scientific  men  whose  religious  endow- 
ments are  so  weak  as  to  permit  them  to  contend 
that  religion  is  a  "  passing  phase  "  in  human 
culture,  are  at  best  men  of  secondary  or  tertiary 
achievement  in  discovery.  I  do  not  believe  a 
candid  consideration  of  historic  and  contem- 
porary science  can  reach  any  other  conclusion 
on  this  matter.  If  some  of  Charles  Darwin's 
utterances  on  religion  be  instanced  as  refuting 
this  view,  it  should  be  pointed  out  that  the  limit 
of  his  skepticism  about  religion,  so  far  as  con- 
cerned his  personal  experiences,  seems  to  have 
been  reached  in  his  parenthetic  remark,  "  I  do 
not  think  the  religious  sentiment  was  ever 
strongly  developed  in  me."  When  he  says, 
"  disbelief  crept  over  me  at  a  very  slow  rate,  but 
was  at  last  complete.  The  rate  was  so  slow 
that  I  felt  no  distress,"  he  is  speaking  about 
certain  dogmas  of  the  particular  Church  into 
which  he  was  born  and  the  priesthood  which  he 
thought  of  joining  during  his  early  life.  I  can 
find  nothing  in  his  writings  that  even  hints  at 
his  having  conceived  the  basal  sentiments  and 
emotions  of  religion  to  be  something  secondary 
and  transient;  and  I  would  insist  that  no  man 
holding  such  notions  has  ever  lived  so  exalted  a 
life  as  he  did,  and  given  to  the  world  so  noble 
a  life's  work  as  he  gave. 


AND  CIVILIZATION  107 

Close  of  kin  to  the  maladies  brought  upon 
man  by  speculations  for  and  against  the  nature 
of  religion,  are  others  brought  on  by  specula- 
tions about  the  Ultimate  Good.  No  profoundly 
modern  man  will  devote  more  of  his  strength 
than  the  impulsions  to  abstract  thought  and 
self-examination  demand,  in  speculating  on 
what  The  Good  is.  He  is  persuaded  that  if 
there  be  such  a  thing  as  Absolute  Good,  neither 
he  nor  anyone  else  knows  what  it  is,  so  that  it 
is  too  tenuous  and  far  away  to  be  of  any  pur- 
pose toward  the  solution  of  real  problems.  He 
is  certain  that  food  and  clothes  and  houses  and 
material  wealth  and  bodily  health  and  comfort, 
are  not  the  whole  good,  but  he  is  also  certain 
they  are  part  of  it. 

So  we  approach  again,  from  a  little  different 
angle,  the  vital  matter  of  attitude  toward  na- 
ture and  toward  work  upon  its  problems. 
Whatever  theory  be  held  as  to  the  nature  of 
God,  it  is  certain  that  the  myriad  ordinary 
things  which  contribute  to  human  efficiency  and 
happiness  He  never  bestows  upon  us,  even  if  He 
could,  except  by  the  medium  of  nature  and  our 
own  brain  work  and  hand  work.  None  but  an 
expert  juggler  with  logic  will  contend  that  God 
is  able  to  make  a  loaf  of  bread  in  any  other 
way  than  through  the  instrumentality  of  flour 
and  human  hands ;  nor  that  He  can  produce 


108  WAR,  SCIENCE 

wheat  by  other  means  than  those  of  soil,  sun- 
shine, and  water. 

The  bestowals  of  the  many  essentials  of  life 
are  upon  the  unjust  as  upon  the  just,  upon  the 
scoffer  as  well  as  upon  the  devout,  so  long  as 
each  works  with  equal  skill  and  industry. 
How,  consequently,  can  any  person  both  honest 
and  intelligent  refuse  to  admit  that  nature  is 
entitled  to  be  a  sharer  in  his  deepest  gratitude 
for  his  own  creation  and  preservation?  How 
can  he  conscientiously  withhold  from  nature 
part  of  that  sense  of  dependence  which  he  so 
gladly  acknowledges  to  be  due  to  God?  There 
is  not  the  remotest  chance  for  science  and  re- 
ligion to  do  their  best  for  man  so  long  as  science 
looks  upon  nature,  and  especially  living  nature, 
as  "  nothing  but  "  matter  and  force ;  and  re- 
ligion looks  upon  the  world  as  mere  dirt  out  of 
which  God  can  make  something  good  if  He 
chooses  to.  Every  great  forward  step  in  civili- 
zation is  testimony  that  part  of  the  beneficence 
which  surely  pertains  to  this  universe  in  some 
way  is  inherent  in  it  and  does  not  belong  to  God 
alone.  The  inculcation  of  Christian  theology, 
from  the  early  centuries  of  its  history  down  to 
this  hour,  that  all  goodness  is  from  God,  while 
nature  is  at  best  only  passively  good  and  for 
the  most  part  is  evil  and  hostile  to  man,  is  not 
merely  contrary  to  fact  and  logic;  it  is  con- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  109 

trary  to  the  every-day  rules  of  fair  play  and 
honest  dealing. 

If  nature  is  in  the  deepest  sense  provident, 
and  if  we  are  warranted  in  adopting  the  hypoth- 
esis that  it  is  all-provident,  why,  I  ask,  should 
not  the  motherhood  of  nature  appeal  as 
strongly  to  our  religious  sentiments  as  the  fa- 
therhood of  God?  Modern  inquiry  into  the 
psychology  of  religion  is  surely  revealing  that 
the  religious  attitude  is  not  determined  wholly 
by  the  external  objects  of  devotion.  It  is 
partly  internal,  is  in  the  constitution  of  man 
himself.  There  is  no  evidence  that  men  ever 
worshipped  a  God  whom  they  conceived  entirely 
hostile  to  themselves,  and  there  is  no  likelihood 
they  ever  will.  No  matter  how  much  or  how 
little  they  know  about  the  general  nature  of  that 
which  they  worship,  of  one  thing  they  must  be 
assured,  and  that  is  that  personal  benefit  of  some 
sort  will  accrue  to  them.  Complete  abnegation 
of  self-interest  would  be  complete  abnegation  of 
self-life. 

III.     RELIGIOUS  ZEAL  IN  SUBJUGATING 
NATURE  RATHER  THAN  IN  SUBJU- 
GATING MEN  AND  NATIONS 

Incidentally,  though  very  importantly,  to  se- 
cure for  labor  upon  nature  the  benefit  of  re- 
ligious zeal  would  involve  its  transference  from 


110  WAR,  SCIENCE 

the  pursuits  of  war  to  those  of  peace.  It  ap- 
pears that  nearly  all  great  warriors  have  recog- 
nized the  mighty  force  of  religion,  and  have 
used  it  to  the  full  for  the  accomplishment  of 
their  tasks.  The  gain  would  surely  be  great, 
could  the  gods  of  agriculture  and  navigation 
and  mining  and  manufacture,  to  say  nothing  of 
those  of  poetry  and  drama  and  painting,  receive 
the  energy  that  has  hitherto  gone  to  the  gods 
of  empire  and  war.  Why  should  there  be  less 
glory  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  lives  of  seamen  who 
sail  merchant  ships  than  of  those  who  "  man  " 
battleships ;  or  of  miners  of  coal  and  gold  than 
of  diggers  of  battle  trenches?  Why  should 
men  be  less  ready  to  yield  up  some  of  their 
power  or  wealth  for  the  general  good  than  to 
yield  their  lives  in  battle  to  the  same  end? 
Why  should  deeds  of  the  former  sort  win  less 
applause  than  those  of  the  latter  ?  Why  should 
nations  sacrifice  innumerable  lives  and  cause  un- 
told suffering  in  war,  holding  such  deeds  to  be 
the  zenith  of  national  honor,  but  view  the  sacri- 
fice of  a  foot  of  territory  as  the  nadir  of  dis- 
honor? To  do  this  is  to  apotheosize  sentimen- 
tal honor  at  the  expense  of  rational  honor,  and 
then  suffer  practical  defeat  at  the  hands  of  the 
false  god.  Surely  the  heights  of  civilization 
toward  which  all  the  great  nations  look  with 
longing  gaze,  have  never  yet  been  scaled  by  any 
of  them. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHAT  OUR  NATION  MIGHT  DO  IN  THE 
PRESENT  CRITICAL  PERIOD 

It  remains  to  ask  what  our  nation  might  do 
at  this  time  to  forward  this  great  end.  Mani- 
festly we  cannot  escape  playing  some  part  in  the 
grim  world-drama  now  being  staged.  The  an- 
swer may  be  short  and  sharp.  Two  sorts  of 
things  may  be  done ;  indeed,  must  be  done,  if  the 
part  we  play  is  to  be  positive  and  honorable. 
One  sort  will  pertain  to  the  nation  itself;  the 
other  to  its  relations  with  other  nations. 

I.     MEASURES  OF  INTRA-NATIONAL 
IMPROVEMENT 

We  shall  forthwith  subject  ourselves  to  a 
self-examination  the  like  of  which  we  have  hith- 
erto known  little  about,  and  shall  thereby  reach 
an  understanding,  a  consciousness  such  as  we 
have  never  before  had,  that  this  nation  of  ours 
is  something  more  real,  something  larger,  some- 
thing grander,  something  holier  than  its  gov- 
ernment and  its  business  interests.  Hitherto, 
whatever  else  there  has  been  —  and  surely  there 

has  been  much  —  has  been  in  rather  than  of  the 
111 


WAR,  SCIENCE 

nation.  At  no  time  in  our  history, —  except 
for  a  period  before  and  during  the  war  which 
removed  from  us  the  slave-holder's  shackles  and 
established  beyond  cavil  the  nation's  physico- 
political  integrity, —  has  the  flag  meant  much 
for  the  higher  life  of  the  whole  people.  It  has 
not  stood  greatly  for  the  evolution  of  the  human 
animal,  for  human  cultivation,  for  civilization, 
as  science  must  understand  these  terms.  With 
regard  to  culture,  the  highest  symbolism 
claimed  for  the  stars  and  stripes  by  most  politi- 
cal leaders  has  been  that  of  opportunity.  For 
culture  itself  (not  Kultur;  may  the  distinction 
be  ever  clear  before  us!)  it  has  signified  little. 

Latterly  it  has  gained  rapidly  in  meaning  for 
general  physical  well-being,  for  political  up- 
rightness, for  legal,  industrial,  and  social  jus- 
tice ;  but  only  permissively  for  the  still  higher 
good  of  the  people,  their  spiritual  development. 
The  nation  as  a  nation  has  thus  far  chosen  to 
restrict  its  fostering  efforts  to  those  in  behalf 
of  the  grosser  needs ;  the  need  for  food,  clothes, 
houses,  bodily  health,  and  material  wealth;  and 
to  leave  the  rest  to  private  beneficence  and  en- 
terprise. As  might  have  been  foreseen,  the  ex- 
periment has  not  succeeded  in  a  measure  that 
ought  to  satisfy  patriotic  citizens.  Poetry, 
drama,  and  music,  painting  and  sculpture,  on 
the  whole  the  purest,  highest  manifestations  of 
man's  culture,  have  not  been  thoroughly  incor- 


AND  CIVILIZATION  113 

porated  into  our  national  life.  They  have  not 
been  integrated,  in  an  evolutional  sense,  with  the 
industrial,  political,  and  economic  life.  And  it 
must  be  predicted  that  they  never  will  be  until 
government  helps  them  no  less  positively  than  it 
now  helps  industry  and  commerce. 

This  national  insight  once  gained,  a  number 
of  somewhat  radical  departures  in  governmental 
undertakings  for  the  general  welfare  would 
quite  surely  be  set  on  foot.  Three  of  these  will 
be  mentioned. 

The  humiliating  little  national  bureau  of  edu- 
cation will  be  humanely  killed  and  decently 
buried,  and  a  department  created  with  a  cabinet 
officer  whose  rank  should  be  inferior  to  none 
except  the  Secretary  of  State.  No  citizen  of 
our  country  who  is  both  patriotic  and  wise  can 
avoid  deep  solicitude  at  the  wide-reaching  in- 
fluence that  privately  endowed  and  managed 
undertakings  are  today  exercising  over  the  edu- 
cation of  the  nation's  young  people.  Nor  need 
this  solicitude  imply  a  shadow  of  suspicion  as 
to  the  motives  with  which  the  great  money  gifts 
are  made,  or  the  persons  chosen  to  execute  the 
trusts.  The  sum  and  substance  of  the  objec- 
tion is  that  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  it  is 
impossible  for  the  nation  to  have  done  what  it 
needs  to  have  done  in  the  way  it  should  be  done, 
without  doing  it  itself.  True  national  culture 
is  self-culture,  just  as  true  individual  culture  is 


114  WAR,  SCIENCE 

self-culture.     It  can  no  more  be  given  or  bought 
in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other. 

Another  thing  that  will  have  to  be  brought 
more  definitely  into  the  national  service  and 
under  the  national  support  and  guidance,  is  art, 
especially  dramatic  art.  A  national  theatre  on 
Capitol  Hill  in  Washington,  architecturally 
worthy  to  associate  with  the  capitol  building 
and  the  Library  of  Congress ;  and  governmental 
encouragement  to  good  play-writing  and  good 
acting,  should  do  much  in  this  direction.  Ob- 
jection to  this  on  the  score  of  cost  may  be  met 
by  the  same  arguments  with  which  objections  to 
expenditures  for  forestry,  the  reclamation  serv- 
ice, and  numerous  other  governmental  under- 
takings are  met.  If  successful,  it  would  pay  in 
the  long  run.  Who  questions  that  to  improve 
the  public  taste  for  plays  and  acting  is  to  make 
more  demand  for  these  and  to  increase  theatre- 
going?  Those  economists  and  politicians  who, 
on  either  theoretical  or  practical  grounds,  hold 
to  the  so-called  economic  interpretation  of 
society,  are  very  poor  business  men.  To  be 
consistent  they  have  to  draw  a  sharp  line  be- 
tween what  they  call  the  necessities  and  the  lux- 
uries of  life,  and  contend  that  the  former  are 
the  things  which  merit  first  and  chief  attention ; 
that  food  and  clothing  stuffs,  building  material, 
and  so  forth,  being  the  backbone  of  man's 
existence,  are  the  commodities  chiefly  implicated 


AND  CIVILIZATION  115 

in  the  law  of  supply  and  demand.  They  per- 
force have  only  a  subsidiary  interest  in  the 
really  human  side  of  human  beings,  and  so 
ignore  for  the  most  part  the  indubitable  fact 
that  all  people  have  far  greater  needs  and  far 
greater  consuming  capacity  on  their  spiritual 
than  on  their  physical  sides.  According  to  the 
governmental  ideas  that  have  prevailed  with 
us,  the  business  politicians  and  the  writers  on 
economics  most  in  vogue,  have  hardly  been  able 
to  think  of  musical  instruments,  theatre  tickets, 
paintings,  works  of  general  literature,  and  fine 
scientific  instruments,  as  serious  elements  in 
business.  No  one  who  has  taken  the  pains  to 
gain  real  insight  into  human  nature  and  who  is 
measurably  familiar  with  business  methods  in 
our  country,  can  fail  to  see  that  there  are 
great  areas  of  human  need  "  unexploited,"  to 
use  a  favorite  expression,  because  their  exist- 
ence does  not  come  wilhin  the  limits  of  business 
men's  theories  and  education. 

The  third  "  internal  improvement "  which, 
according  to  my  view,  the  nation  will  have  to 
undertake  is  the  founding  of  a  national  univer- 
sity dedicated  first  and  foremost  to  research  in 
pure  —  that  is,  unindustrialized, —  knowledge. 
Being  a  man  of  science  and  holding  a  university 
post,  and,  as  might  be  expected,  specially  inter- 
ested in  this  subject,  I  restrain  my  impulse  to 
write  at  length  upon  it.  I  shall  concentrate  my 


116  WAR,  SCIENCE 

remarks  into  a  single  sentence :  I  do  not  believe 
the  vast  affairs  of  the  nation  which  the  govern- 
ment is  now  trying  to  take  care  of  through  its 
many  departments  and  bureaus  of  applied  sci- 
ence, will  ever  be  cared  for  with  the  highest  at- 
tainable success  until  the  government  itself  fur- 
nishes the  best  facilities  that  can  be  furnished 
for  training  investigators.  Rightly  conceived 
and  carried  out,  the  national  university  would 
not  weaken,  it  would  strengthen  existing  insti- 
tutions of  like  character. 

II.  MEASURES  OF  INTERNATIONAL 
IMPROVEMENT 

The  supreme  international  step  our  govern- 
ment could  take  would  be  to  express  to  the 
nations  of  the  world  its  readiness  to  join  with 
others  in  a  great  extension  of  our  already  well- 
advanced  "  open  door  "  policy ;  the  proposed 
extension  being  nothing  less  than  that  of  peace- 
fully transferring  its  sovereignty  over  portions 
of  its  territory  to  other  nations  under  certain 
conditions.  The  hitherto  unthinkableness  of 
such  a  thing  appears  to  be  due  in  considerable 
part  to  the  notions  that  the  ownership  of  land 
by  a  government  has  a  peculiar  sacredness  and 
inalienability  that  does  not  pertain  to  owner- 
ship by  an  individual;  and  that  self-interest 
and  altruism  are  wholly  different  categories 
when  applied  to  nations  from  what  they  are  for 


AND  CIVILIZATION  117 

individuals.  Anyone  who  has  grasped  firmly 
the  principles  of  organic  individuation  and  in- 
tegration, of  independence  and  dependence, 
must  see  that  self-interest  and  interest-in- 
another  have  essential  elements  in  common, 
whether  applied  to  individuals  or  to  any  other 
organic  entities.  What  we  call  egoism  is  or- 
ganically tinctured  with  what  we  call  altruism, 
and  altruism  is  similarly  tinctured  with  egoism, 
and  it  matters  not  whether  the  related  individ- 
uals be  individual  human  beings  or  individual 
nations. 

Consider  a  hypothetical  case,  which  might 
become  an  actual  one  were  the  principles  here 
enunciated  acted  upon.  The  relationship  of 
the  United  States  to  Japan  is  on  the  whole  more 
problematical  than  that  with  any  other  over- 
seas power,  its  present  delicate  situation  rela- 
tive to  some  of  the  European  countries  being 
exceptional  and  presumably  transitory.  In 
matters  of  trade  and  of  social,  intellectual,  ar- 
tistic, and,  it  may  be  said,  religious  comity,  we 
are  getting  on  well  with  Japan.  The  two 
peoples  are  understanding  each  other  better  and 
better,  and  are  profiting  more  and  more  by  their 
neighborliness.  But  on  the  horizon  appear  the 
dread  figures  of  the  labor  and  race  problems ; 
the  first  growing  primarily  out  of  Japan's  con- 
gested population;  the  second,  out  of  the  fact 
that  the  two  peoples  are  of  different  ethnic 


118  WAR,  SCIENCE 

stocks.  What  is  to  be  done  about  it?  The 
key  to  the  situation  is  clear  enough.  The 
Japanese  government  does  not  own  as  much 
land  as  its  people  need,  while  the  government 
of  the  United  States  owns  more  than  its  people 
need,  or  at  least  more  than  they  are  able  at  the 
present  time  to  use  to  the  best  advantage.  The 
whole  Pacific  slope  of  the  United  States  and 
the  Hawaiian  Islands  are  pushing  hard  for  more 
general  utilization  of  their  farm  lands.  The 
problems  of  land  and  of  laborers  are  central 
in  whatever  of  menace  the  situation  contains. 
The  question  of  race  is  surely  subordinate, 
though  susceptible  of  being  played  upon  with 
great  effect,  as  we  all  know  and  have  plenty  of 
opportunity  to  regret.  Why  should  not  the 
two  nations  approach  the  problem  in  the  same 
spirit  and  with  the  same  rational  regard  for 
facts  that  would  obtain  between  two  high- 
minded  business  men,  should  a  parallel  problem 
come  up  between  them?  Japan  needs  more 
territory ;  we  could  spare  some. 

Since  Japan  and  the  United  States  have  al- 
ready sought  through  diplomacy  to  adjust  the 
labor  question,  what  could  be  more  rational 
than  to  seek  a  course  whereby  Japanese  laborers 
might  choose  to  go  elsewhere  than  to  the  Pacific 
States,  rather  than  to  compel  them  to  stay 
away?  Is  there  anything  Japan  could  give 
us  in  exchange  for  a  piece  of  our  holdings, — 


AND  CIVILIZATION  119 

the  Hawaiian  Islands,  for  example?  *  The 
specific  character  of  the  transaction  would  be 
determined  by  the  negotiations.  It  might  be  an 
out-and-out  money  "  deal,"  so  far  as  the  ter- 
ritory is  concerned,  as  was  the  acquisition  of 
Alaska  by  the  United  States.  But  the  fact 
that  the  Islands  are  occupied  by  a  civilized 
population  and  much  of  the  soil  is  under  good 
cultivation,  puts  them  in  a  different  case  from 
what  Alaska  was  at  the  time  of  its  purchase. 

*  The  reasoning  could  be  modified  so  as  to  apply  as 
well  to  the  Philippine  Islands  or  part  of  them,  or  to 
Alaska  or  a  part  of  it.  The  principle  is  the  thing.  If 
the  United  States  becomes  rational  and  far-sighted  in  her 
telf-interest  she  will  see  it  would  be  wiser  to  help  Japan 
to  what  she  must  have  than  to  try  to  prevent  her  from 
getting  it. 

While  reading  the  proof  of  this  essay  I  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  proposal  of  Congressman  Frank  O. 
Smith,  as  embodied  in  a  joint  resolution  presented  by  him 
in  the  National  House  of  Representatives  on  October 
14,  1914,  to  transfer  the  so-called  Panhandle  of  South- 
eastern Alaska  to  Canada.  Obviously  the  main  thesis  of 
my  essay  is  in  essential  accord  with  Mr.  Smith's  com- 
mendable plan  as  thus  stated.  But  his  two  contentions 
in  support  of  the  resolution,  that  this  transfer  would  be 
a  national  act  in  accordance  with  the  Golden  Rule;  and 
that  it  should  be  made  as  a  step  toward  uniting  the 
white  race  against  Asiatics,  are,  according  to  my  judg- 
ment, incompatible  with  each  other.  Has  Mr.  Smith  for- 
gotten that  the  "  white  race  "  got  its  Golden  Rule  from 
Asiatics?  And  does  he  not  know  that  during  all  the  cen- 
turies since  the  rule  was  enunciated,  it  has  come  at  least 
as  near  realization  in  Asia  as  it  has  in  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica? The  golden  quality  of  the  rule  would  be  lost  by 
such  restriction. 


120  WAR,  SCIENCE 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Alaska  did  have  a  popula- 
tion which,  though  small  and  but  slightly  ad- 
vanced in  culture,  was  sufficient  to  have  raised 
many  of  the  questions  that  naturally  inhere  in 
any  transfer  of  national  title  to  territory.  Be- 
yond a  doubt  the  human  elements  in  all  busi- 
ness ought  to  be  recognized  as  paramount. 
The  physical  elements,  money  or  land  or  trade, 
are  subordinate,  no  matter  what  their  magni- 
tude. A  sum  of  money  and  a  quit-claim  deed 
are  never  the  whole,  are  not  even  the  chief  parts 
of  a  business  transaction.  What  could  give  the 
highest  worth  to  negotiations  toward  this  par- 
ticular transaction,  would  be  an  effort  on  the 
part  of  these  two  nations  to  bring  about  an 
international  agreement  whereby  the  fortifica- 
tion and  military  defence  of  the  Hawaiian  and 
all  other  Pacific  Ocean  ports  should  finally  be 
done  away  with.  Such  an  effort  would  natu- 
rally involve  all  the  great  powers  which  have 
interest  in  the  Pacific,  and  even  though  unsuc- 
cessful, should  be  of  lasting  good,  for  it  would 
be  an  intergovernmental  recognition  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  treating  rationally  one  of  the  hardest 
problems  that  confronts  civilization.  And  were 
the  effort  to  succeed,  the  gain  to  us  in  immunity 
from  expenditures  for  armament  on  our  Pacific 
frontiers  would  repay  any  money  loss. 

But  what  of  our  fellow-citizens  whose  homes 
and  business  interests  are  in  the  Islands  ?     Does 


AND  CIVILIZATION  121 

not  the  suggestion  to  thus  dispose  of  the  terri- 
tory involve  the  reprehensible  idea  of  handing 
over  a  portion  of  our  population  to  a  foreign 
country?  With  many  of  the  Americans  resi- 
dent in  the  Islands,  pure  patriotism  and  devo- 
tion to  American  institutions  would  probably 
stand  seriously  in  the  way  of  willingness  to  live 
under  a  foreign  government.  Difficulties  would 
undoubtedly  be  found  in  this.  But  it  seems  as 
though  there  is  a  starting  point  for  the  adjust- 
ment. The  situation  in  the  Archipelago  is  per- 
plexing any  way.  The  problem  of  a  supply  of 
labor  for  the  plantations  is  perennial,  often 
acute.  There  is  no  prospect  of  its  being  solved 
by  migration  thither  of  American  workmen. 
The  number  of  Americans  is  so  small  in  pro- 
portion to  the  Orientals,  the  Japanese  largely 
predominating,  as  to  deprive  the  general  popu- 
lation of  anything  like  an  American  character. 
As  a  consequence  there  can  be  little  of  that 
sense  of  solidarity  and  security  which  can  ac- 
crue only  to  a  community  of  considerable  homo- 
geneity of  race,  language,  and  social  customs. 

Individual  and  property  rights  of  American 
citizens  would  have  to  be  secured  by  treaty  to 
such  Americans  as  should  wish  to  continue  their 
Island  residence;  and  it  seems  as  though  their 
business  would  be  better  off  under  a  strictly 
Japanese  regime  than  under  present  conditions. 
A  large  increase  of  the  Japanese  population 


WAR,  SCIENCE 

would  undoubtedly  take  place  and  this  would 
result  in  a  more  thorough  development  of  the 
Islands*  resources  than  can  be  expected  with 
things  as  they  are. 

This  piece  of  territory,  even  though  small, 
added  to  what  Japan  already  has  in  Formosa, 
and  taken  with  her  privileges  in  Korea  and 
Manchuria,  ought  to  relieve  greatly  the  con- 
gestion of  population  which  she  is  now  endur- 
ing. 

Again,  opportunity  would  be  afforded  by  the 
transaction  to  settle  by  treaty  the  still  broader 
question  of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  citizens 
of  each  country  to  migrate  to  the  other  and 
hold  property  there.  And  finally,  the  chance 
would  be  afforded  for  two  peoples  of  different 
race  and  culture  to  take  up  together  more 
definitely  and  directly,  more  officially,  if  one 
chooses  so  to  state  it,  the  problem  of  how  such 
peoples  are  to  make  their  inevitable  contact 
with  each  other  serve  the  good  of  both  and  the 
still  larger  ends  of  world  civilization. 

It  remains  to  say  a  little  about  the  part  the 
American  citizens  resident  in  the  Islands  would 
take  in  the  transaction.  So  far  the  only  part 
assigned  them  has  been  for  them  to  see  that 
their  conditions  would  not  be  made  seriously 
worse,  and  might  possibly  be  bettered  by  the 
change,  and  then  to  submit  to  the  inevitable 
with  as  good  grace  as  possible.  But  such  a 


AND  CIVILIZATION  123 

passive  or  semi-passive  role  would  be  quite  in- 
compatible with  the  dominant  ideas  of  this  dis- 
cussion. The  formal  consent  of  a  majority  of 
these  citizens  would  be  an  essential  condition  to 
the  transaction.  Something  of  the  disadvan- 
tages and  advantages  to  them  that  might  be 
expected  have  been  indicated.  Could  they  be 
so  impressed  with  the  possibilities  for  good  to 
the  two  races  and  nations  at  large  and  to  the 
general  cause  of  civilization  as  to  induce  them 
to  favor  the  scheme  ?  That  is  one  of  the  crucial 
questions. 

For  more  than  a  century  we  people  of  North 
America  have  repeated  with  enthusiasm  and 
pride  Bishop  Berkeley's  line,  "  Westward  the 
course  of  empire  takes  its  way."  Deeper 
should  be  our  enthusiasm  and  more  justifiable 
our  pride,  had  we  the  right  to  supplement  that 
line  by  another,  "  Westward  the  course  of  civili- 
zation takes  its  way."  Such  a  right,  I  believe, 
we  should  be  acknowledged  by  the  world  to  have 
won,  could  we  consummate  some  such  arrange- 
ment as  that  outlined. 

Two  and  a  quarter  centuries  ago  the  gentle 
soul  of  William  Perm  conceived  for  this  western 
continent  a  Philadelphia,  a  City  of  Brotherly 
Love.  The  mighty  experiences  civilized  man 
has  gone  through  since  that  time  have  shown 
that  what  he  must  have  to  realize  Berkeley's 
vision,  "  time's  noblest  offspring,"  is  less  a  City 


124  WAR,  SCIENCE 

of  Brotherly  Love  than  a  Land  of  Brotherly 
Wisdom,  a  Sophodelphia  rather  than  a  Phila- 
delphia, The  world's  prayer  at  this  time 
should  be  for  an  understanding  of  head  and 
heart.  Therethrough  alone  runs  the  road  to 
any  sort  of  human  brotherhood  and  love  for 
which  strong,  active  men  can  care. 

Would  the  American  citizens  of  Hawaii  be 
willing  to  put  their  beautiful  island  home  to 
such  a  world  service?  I  believe  a  majority  of 
them  would,  once  they  were  assured  it  would 
not  entail  considerable  material  loss  upon  them, 
but  might  bring  gain ;  and  were  made  to  see  that 
it  would  usher  in  a  new  era  in  world  politics 
and  world  civilization;  an  era  in  which  nations 
would  find  it  to  their  own  advantage  to  help 
one  another  when  help  is  really  needed,  rather 
than  to  injure  one  another. 

The  possibility  of  conditions  in  which  the 
policy  of  England  would  be  to  help  Russia  to 
better  seaports,  if  Russia  truly  needs  them;  of 
France  to  help  Germany  to  more  and  better 
room  in  Africa  for  colonization,  if  Germany's 
needs  in  that  direction  are  clear;  and  of  Ger- 
many to  help  Japan,  the  United  States,  and 
Great  Britain  to  free  the  whole  Pacific  from 
need  for  extensive  armaments,  might  be  counted 
on  to  fill  millions  of  persons  the  world  over, 
among  whom  would  be  the  Hawaiian  Americans, 
with  an  enthusiasm  that  would  be  irresistible 


AND  CIVILIZATION  125 

and  permanent  because  sustained  by  reason  as 
well  as  by  emotion. 

This  is  idealism,  but  it  is  scientific  idealism. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


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